Security forces try to disperse a crowd at the junction of Matoto where shops were burnt and looted after Friday’s clashes between supporters of President Alpha Conde and his main election rival Cellou Dalein Diallo, in Conakry yesterday.

Reuters
Conakry

Top Guinea opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo said yesterday he would participate in today’s presidential election after the constitutional court rejected a request for a last-minute postponement.
Shops remained closed and the streets of the capital Conakry were largely empty following two days of street battles between opposition supporters, backers of President Alpha Conde and security forces that left several dead and scores injured.
Though there were no reports of further clashes yesterday, gunfire was heard overnight in at least one Conakry neighbourhood, raising fears that the violence could carry over into election day.
Seven opposition parties had requested that the constitutional court delay the polls for at least one week to address what they claimed were irregularities in the process.
Conde had earlier said there was no reason to push back the poll date after the elections commission, the CENI, stated that it was ready to go forward with the vote, provoking concerns that the opposition might boycott.
The court denied the motion for a delay late on Friday.
Diallo said he had consulted with his party and political allies before deciding to participate, but he maintained the process was flawed.
“I am for peace,” he told journalists. “There is a real risk of conflict but it is linked to the injustice and obstinate refusal of the CENI to create the conditions for a free and transparent vote.”
Guinea—Africa’s leading producer of bauxite, the raw material for aluminium—has a history of violent elections, including the 2010 poll that brought Conde to power, ending two years of repressive military rule.
“There was shooting in the whole neighbourhood in every direction,” said Souleymane Timbi Bah, referring to overnight gunfire in Bambeto, a neighbourhood considered one of Diallo’s strongholds in the capital.
At least two people were killed and some 33 were wounded during clashes on Friday, the second day of violence in Conakry, witnesses and a senior police source said.
Eighteen of the wounded were members of the security forces, state television said, and there were also clashes in Kerouane and Kissidougou in the southeast of the country, according to a government source.
A Reuters witness saw two people at a clinic in the opposition-friendly Kosa neighbourhood, who had been shot in the legs during Friday’s clashes.
In an automated call in both French and the local Fula language to mobile phones in Conakry, Conde called for calm.
“I ask you to go vote calmly and to preserve the peace ... Guinea is you, me, him. Avoid fighting,” the president said in the pre-recorded message.
Conde is favoured to win re-election though a second round of voting will likely be required, raising the prospect of a repeat of 2010’s run-off between the president and Diallo.
“There’s a strong risk that the bitterness of 2010 will have an impact on the 2015 vote,” said political analyst Mohamed Camara. “The opposition has struggled to digest its defeat and the government has opened itself up to criticism by not fostering a calming discourse.”