The Guinea Conakry elections

The ‘state of besiegement’ which the regime had carried as a ‘’revolutionary’ legacy was deepened and became fertile ground for Sekou Toure’s preoccupation with security; breeding a culture of repression and a flowering of an apparatus of sniffers of the state’s ‘’enemies’’. Sekou Toure’s ethnic Malinke elite exploited it to protect their monopoly of juicy […]

The ‘state of besiegement’ which the regime had carried as a ‘’revolutionary’ legacy was deepened and became fertile ground for Sekou Toure’s preoccupation with security; breeding a culture of repression and a flowering of an apparatus of sniffers of the state’s ‘’enemies’’. Sekou Toure’s ethnic Malinke elite exploited it to protect their monopoly of juicy positions of power. With 40 percent of the population, the Pula or Fulbe (Fulani) bore the brunt of being suspected treason-mongers. Over two million Guineans fled into exile to escape repression.
Following the death of Sekou Toure in 1984, Susu military officers hastened to seize power; and appointed one of their own – Colonel Lansana Conte – as head of a ‘’Committee of National Reformation’’. Fear of a Malinke counter-coup and loss of power, saw increasing attacks on opposition parties and groups, particularly in the politics of “transition’’ to the 1993 elections. In 1993, 18 anti-government protesters were fatally shot; while political parties increasingly coalesced around ethnic leaders. The Unity and Progress Party, led by Conte, was supported by the Susu; Alpha Conde’s Rally for the Guinea People (RPG) attracted Malinke supporters; and Fulani politicians Mamadou Boye Ba’s Union for New Republic and Siradiou Diallo’s Party for Renewal and Progress hosted ethnic supporters too.
This polarised electoral political architecture has over the years led to incumbents always winning elections they conduct; and opposition parties shouting foul.
It came as little surprise that the February 12, 2007 military coup was led by Malinke officers who immediately declared a ‘’state of siege’’ and banned demonstrations and protests by opposition groups. Repression is routinely indicated by the injunction that ‘’all political meetings must be approved by government’’, thereby, crippling chances of mobilising supporters by opposition parties.
The September 28, 2013 parliamentary elections have been rejected by the opposition who claimed that ‘’fraud was so massive’’. American, French and European Union ambassadors and observers blamed ‘’irregularities’’, asserting that ‘’breaches…were observed in a certain number of constituencies, preventing a significant number of votes from being taken into account’’. It was typical of a political tradition of nervous exclusion of ethnic-based challenges for power.
Guinea’s attraction of investments by Chinese companies is likely to add external intervention in the country’s electoral contests as investors from the European Union, Japan, Brazil and the United States seek to enhance chances of friendly politicians. Diplomats from these countries who took part in the elections as ‘’observers’’, should be expected to be very nervous about Chinese companies gaining access to Guinea’s rich endowments with minerals. Having exploited Guinea cynically and ruthlessly after Conte’s administration towed IMF and World Bank dictations after 1985, they would be hostile to Alpha Conde’s turn to China’s readiness to support development projects long turned down by these agencies and their NATO allies. However, the ethnic ‘’siege mentality’’ in Guinea’s political culture constitutes a valuable fog under which hostile foreign actors can hide interventionist horns of their economic diplomacy.
Conspiracy theory apart, the road to nation-building remains a severely malnourished pre-occupation in Guinea. The ethnic pillars along which her electoral politics is anchored could be encouraged to learn valuable lessons from the creative reforms achieved by Kenya’s political parties, civil society organisations -including religious groups – and written into her 2010 constitution. A main pillar of that constitution is the dispersal of power from central presidency to local authorities (‘’counties’’) as sites for sharing and ‘’eating’’ national incomes. The horrendous violence which followed the December 2007 elections in Kenya and the spectre of the country breaking apart had forced public intellectuals and politicians into undertaking responsible and innovative political engineering.
Another source of creative ideas would be Nigeria. Her invention of devices like the ‘’federal character principle’’, and the injunction that a president and other elected officials must win a minimum of 25 per cent of votes in three-quarters of constituencies, need urgent study by Guinea’s leaders. ECOWAS can facilitate this political adult-literacy project.
Guinea has a legacy of longevity of incumbency of rulers. French colonial dictators did not offer lesions in transfers of power from one ruling group to another. President Sekou Toure died in office – and while in search of medical help from American ’’imperialists’’ – after 30 years in power.  Lansana Conte also died in office but after only 24 years on the national cake. When such longevity is fused with  exclusion of other ethnic groups from dividends of power, it breeds desperation for transitions through what has been called “dying for change’’ even by workers going on strike. The African Union and ECOWAS must assume bold responsibility for injecting creative healing and growth in Guinea’s blood-coated politics.   
President Robert Mugabe has mocked Nelson Mandela’s resort to ‘’confessing and talking bitterness’’ by victims and former security operators of apartheid; preferring more muscular seizure of lands from Zimbabwe’s white farmers. Guinea’s leaders should still study South Africa’s “Truth and Reconciliation’’ drama as a tool for building a ‘’rainbow nation’’.  They should also consider Mugabe’s new economic tool for inventing legitimacy for politics by grabbing 50 per cent shares in companies for local communities –not just some individuals in or from those local communities – in which diamond, gold, platinum and other mining activities are sited. Economic welfare for local communities is a healing tonic in pluralistic countries.