The controversial offer by 82-year-old President Alpha Conde for a third term on October 18 sparked massive protests in the country.
More than 90 people were killed in crackdown on protests against Guinea President Alpha Conde’s offer to seek a controversial third term in the weekend’s elections, a leading opposition group said.
The 82-year-old is fighting for re-election on October 18 after he passed a new constitution in March, which critics say is intended to circumvent a two-time limit in the West African country.
The opposition to a third Conde term in office has brought tens of thousands of Guineans to the streets since mid-October last year.
However, the protests often turned violent, and dozens were killed. The constitutional referendum in March was also marked by violence.
On Monday, the anti-Conde coalition FNDC released a list of 92 protesters who have been killed since mid-October last year.
About 45 of these protesters were shot dead, the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC) said, and eight remain unknown.
However, Guinea’s Security Minister Albert Damantang Camara rejected the FNDC report on the grounds that he had refused to undergo politically motivated “macabre bookkeeping”.
“There have been violent deaths that we regret and we are working to ensure that this doesn’t happen again,” he told AFP, “but it would be very surprising if there were 92 of them.”
Supporters of the incumbent attend a campaign rally in Conakry ahead of the October 18 elections [Cellou Binani/AFP]The minister admitted that political clashes could be responsible for 42 deaths but said there was insufficient evidence to attribute them to security forces.
In a report released on October 1, Amnesty International held the Guinean security forces responsible for the deaths of at least 50 demonstrators and called on the government to hold the perpetrators accountable.
Hope for a new political dawn blossomed when Conde became Guinea’s first democratically elected president in 2010.
Critics and rights groups have said, however, that Conde – who is himself a former opposition figure – has increasingly moved to authoritarianism in his current second term in office.
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