One of the losing candidates in Guinea’s 27th June presidential election said his party will launch a formal complaint to the country’s Supreme before this Friday.
Supporters of Sidya Toure of the Union of Republican Forces (UFR) party held rallies Monday in Conakry to protest what they said was the Electoral Commission’s conduct of a fraudulent election.
Mamadi Diane, an advisor to candidate Sidya Toure, told VOA candidate Toure was defrauded from going into the run-off.
“Mr. Toure was cheated out of his position of number two to number three, and he has said it live to BBC and Radio France International that he believes he was cheated out of the second position,” he said.
According to provisional results released last week, Toure secured only 16 percent of the first-round vote. Another former prime minister, Cellou Dalein Diallo, won the poll with nearly 40 percent of the vote.
Diallo will face long-time opposition politician Alpha Conde, who placed second with just over 20 percent.
Election observers from the U.S.-based Carter Center and the European Union have largely applauded the first round of voting, while noting there were some irregularities.
But, Diane said other candidates, besides Mr. Toure, also felt cheated.
“Even the number two guy, Alpha Conde, and the number four guy, Lansana Kouyate, all three of them are going to the Supreme Court and drop a complaint,” Diane said.
He said Toure plans to file his complaint before this Friday to give the Supreme Court three working days before rendering its final decision.
Diane revealed that a prominent member of the electoral commission has also resigned to protest the unfairness of the vote.
“One very interesting thing that you should report also is one prominent member of the electoral committee, who is a lawyer representing the civil society, resigned yesterday from the Independent Electoral Committee, saying the election was not fair,” Diane said.
Diane would not say whether Mr. Toure would support one of the two candidates in the 18th July run-off in the event the Supreme Court rules against his appeal.
“He’s not going to pronounce himself yet until the Supreme Court takes its decision. But, he will definitely abide by what the Supreme Court decision will be,” Diane said.
He said Toure believes that, except for the counting of the votes, the 27th June election was better than previous elections in Guinea.
“It was definitely better because they allowed each party time on national TV every day to express themselves and (was) given radio time. The newspapers were allowed to talk to them. Unfortunately, what went wrong is, during the electoral committee, that’s when things changed. On the one hand, they take somebody like Mr. Toure, they will use the law and cancel a number of his votes in about three districts. On the other hand, that same number did not apply to other candidates,” he said.
Diane said the protest Monday by mostly red-clad, female supporters of Mr. Toure was peaceful.
He said the mostly Muslim women wore all red because red signifies unhappiness.
