Agencies/Conakry

Guinea’s presidential election was valid despite some logistical difficulties, European Union observers said yesterday in an apparent boost for a vote expected to return President Alpha Conde for another five years.
The EU statement came as clashes broke out over Sunday’s election between supporters of the president and the opposition in at least two neighbourhoods of the capital Conakry, witnesses said.
The election results are yet to be officially announced. Early results announced by radio stations so far showed Conde with a sizeable lead, though a second round is possible.
“What I saw in terms of insufficient (voting material), lack of preparation and logistical and practical difficulties at the polling stations does not mar the validity of the election,” said the head of the EU
observer mission Frank Engels.
Irate opposition leaders on Monday called for a re-run of the vote, condemning the ballot as fraudulent even before the results were in with some pledging to take to the streets in protest.
But Engel said “the disputes that might arise in Guinea should be transferred to the judges rather than lived out in the street.”
It was only the second democratic presidential election in the west African country since independence in 1958 and saw a strong turnout of around 60%, he said.
Welcoming voter participation and lack of violence on election day, Engel said “the October 11 vote was an exemplary ballot for this country.”
African Union observers too welcomed the fact that the vote was peaceful while criticising the logistical mayhem.
But opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo dubbed Sunday’s vote “a masquerade, a massive fraud throughout the day.”
Around noon yesterday, groups of youngsters hurled stones at each other near his home but were dispersed by police using teargas.
While the pre-election campaign was largely peaceful, around a dozen people were killed in deadly clashes last week between the two main rival camps.
On Sunday, some polling stations opened late, others were short of envelopes. Some voters turned up without voter ID cards, others failed to find their names on electoral registers. Some lists were neither in alphabetical nor numerical order.
The first free presidential vote in 2010, won by Conde, was tainted by accusations of fraud that led to violence, as were legislative polls three years later.
“We cannot accept this ballot, we request it be annulled. We will not accept the results of this vote,” Diallo said at a press conference on Monday attended by the six other candidates challenging the incumbent head of state.
“We will not give in, we have the right to demonstrate, we will demonstrate.”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the peaceful vote and urged all sides to refrain from any action that could lead to violence ahead of the release of the official results, expected in the coming days.
While the other six candidates questioned the vote, none called for protest, and the single woman running for election, Marie Madeleine Dioubate, urged her supporters to “stay calm, stay off the streets”.
Even before voting opened, opposition parties had warned of fraud and vote-rigging and accused the CENI of mismanaging the poll.
“No one wants the country to burn, no one wants citizens to clash, stones against stones, sticks against sticks, but the scene has been set... so that is where we end up,” said former prime minister Lansana Kouyate, one of three ex premiers standing in the poll.
Conde was elected five years ago to head the mineral-rich but impoverished nation after returning from three decades in exile to defeat Diallo, a former prime minister who remains his closest rival.
The 77-year-old incumbent campaigned on his track record of reforms to the army and judiciary, a new hydroelectric power station and increased transparency in attributing rights to the country’s mineral wealth.
His foes have accused him of poor management, including the handling of the Ebola crisis, and said he wields too much power in isolation while stirring up tension among ethnic groups.
Conde’s campaign director Kassory Fofana said “the technical dysfunctions” seen on election day “in no way harm the validity of the vote”. He urged people “to calmly await the announcement of the results.”
Conde’s power base lies with his Malinke people while Diallo’s supporters are largely from the Fulani community, the country’s biggest and wealthiest group, but one which has never held the country’s top job.
Former premier Sidya Toure said the fraud was aimed particularly “at eliminating his party, the country’s most consensual, in order to always maintain the politico-community split.”
Sociology professor Alpha Amadou Bano Barry said Guinea has a history of violence when election results were announced.
“To stifle protests, security forces are sent onto the streets at nightfall so the population awakes under a non-declared state of siege,” he said.