Guinea holds parliament election five years after coup
Guineans voted on Sunday in legislative and municipal elections marking a new step towards a return to democratic rule after a 2021 coup, despite severe restrictions on civil liberties and an opposition boycott.
The authorities pushed back the close of polling stations 90 minutes to 7.30 pm (1930 GMT) before counting started.
The day was marked by a low turnout at polling stations visited by AFP journalists in the capital, Conakry, and the central city of Labe, and according to election monitors across the country.
Almost seven million people were eligible to vote but critics of coup leader President Mamadi Doumbouya urged voters to boycott the process.
Voters are electing 147 MPs, most expected to be drawn from the presidential camp as the government dissolved the main opposition parties in March.
“I don’t even know who to vote for,” Mariatou Diallo, 18, told AFP as she cast her first-ever vote in a Conakry suburb.
Alassane Barry, a 23-year-old student, said he did not know any of the candidates, calling them “unknown figures”.
The Forces Vives de Guinee coalition of the main opposition and civil society groups called for a boycott of an “electoral farce” that they said would establish “a new dictatorship”.
One opposition party, the Democratic Front of Guinea (Frondeg), which placed second in the presidential election in December with a 6.6 percent vote share, denounced an assault on one of its candidates in the central town of Mamou.
The party said that Abdoulaye Bademba Diallo was “attacked” in a restaurant on Saturday evening “by two hooded individuals” on a motorcycle.
The campaign unfolded peacefully but turnout is key in polls taking place just days after the major religious holiday of Eid al-Adha, when Guineans gather with their families.
Doumbouya, who seized power in September 2021, was elected president for a seven-year term in December having faced no serious opponent.
He had initially promised to hand power back to civilians at the end of a transition period.
His government has suspended many political parties, banned protests and arrested opposition and civil society leaders.
Enforced disappearances and abductions of dissidents and their relatives have become common.
The Institute for Studies and Security, an African think tank, warned recently of the risk of political structures being “dominated by a single force”.
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