Guinea's Military Junta Is Digging In for the Long Haul

Yahoo

23-04-2025

In early April, the military-led government of Guinea announced a constitutional referendum for Sept. 21, with at least a presidential election likely to follow later this year. The announcement seems to be an attempt by the country's interim leader, Gen. Mamadi Doumbouya, to accelerate his efforts to normalize his regime. The polls are expected to mark the end of the 'transition' back to constitutional rule after the military coup led by Doumbouya—then a colonel—against then-President Alpha Conde in September 2021. But Guinean authorities no longer speak of a 'transition,' instead referring to a 'refoundation' of the state, while openly asserting their intention to remain in power.
Ever since the coup three and a half years ago, the National Committee for Reconciliation and Development, or CNRD—as the junta named itself—has implemented delaying tactics to postpone the return to constitutional order. It organized 'national consultations' and 'political dialogues,' all of which were boycotted by the main political parties, and claimed that it needed to conduct a census to create a new electoral roll. It has spent the past year drafting a new constitution, whose text so far remains a closely guarded secret.
The goal was to gain time to consolidate power and eliminate opponents, even as Doumbouya promised he would hand power back to a democratically elected civilian government. The CNRD knew its legitimacy was weak, based solely on having overthrown Conde, a president widely despised by Guinea's population. By contrast, a number of political parties—especially the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea, or UFDG, led by Cellou Dalein Diallo—had greater democratic credibility from having opposed Conde's controversial bid for a constitutionally prohibited third term in 2020.
As a result, quick elections after the coup could have cost the CNRD its hold on power, most likely in favor of Diallo. That is why Diallo, who like other opposition and civil society leaders initially welcomed the coup, soon became a target of the new regime. He went into exile in 2022 after the CNRD seized and demolished a house he owned in the capital, Conakry, claiming he had acquired it illegally while serving as a minister two decades earlier. Shortly afterward, the judiciary launched an anti-corruption investigation against him related to the privatization of the state-owned airline, Air Guinea—a case dating back 20 years. Today, it is unclear whether he will even be able to participate in future elections.
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The CNRD also co-opted several UFDG grandees, including Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, whose tensions with Cellou Dalein Diallo are well known. The CNRD appointed Ousmane Gaoual Diallo as government spokesperson in November 2021, for which he was expelled from the UFDG the following June. He went on to form a dissident faction of the UFDG in February 2024, even as legal proceedings he brought to contest his expulsion continue, all of which has destabilized his former party.
The government has also neutralized its other main challengers. Conde went into exile in Turkey in 2022, and former Prime Minister Sidya Toure fled to Cote d'Ivoire that same year. In any case, both will be barred from running because the new draft constitution will likely stipulate that candidates must be under 80 years of age. Another political leader, the young and popular Aliou Bah, was sentenced in early January to two years in prison for 'insult and defamation' against Doumbouya after criticizing the lack of transparency in the management of the $20 billion Simandou iron ore mining project. Still awaiting the verdict of his appeal, it is likely Bah will be behind bars during the presidential election.
The international context is now similarly favorable to the junta. In Gabon, Gen. Oligui Nguema easily won the country's presidential election earlier this month, its first following his coup in 2023, as did Chadian President Mahamat Deby in May 2024, following his unconstitutional seizure of power in 2021. Meanwhile, the countries of the Alliance of Sahelian States, or AES—Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger—have resisted international and some domestic pressure to hold elections, to the point that they are no longer facing any urgency to do so.
As for the international community, it seems largely indifferent to Guinea. The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS—West Africa's regional bloc—mainly wants to avoid losing another member after the AES countries' withdrawal earlier this year. France is trying to avoid a diplomatic rift with yet another former colony. And the U.S. under President Donald Trump cares little for democracy promotion abroad or for engagement with Africa. To the extent that foreign powers take any interest in Guinea, it is to attempt to secure a share of its immense mineral wealth, including reserves of iron ore, bauxite and gold.
So if the CNRD is now rushing to organize elections, it is less due to any international pressure and more because it has eliminated all major political opponents and faces no real competition. Posters glorifying Doumbouya are now ubiquitous in Conakry, and local officials are organizing a stream of rallies in his honor in smaller towns, while prohibiting other parties from holding their own demonstrations. Though Doumbouya has not yet officially declared that he will run in the upcoming presidential election, government officials openly refer to him as their candidate.
Additionally, the CNRD has decided that the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, or MATD, will oversee the polls, rather than the Independent National Electoral Commission, or CENI, as had been the case since 2010. As a result, the UFDG has denounced the upcoming poll as an 'electoral farce,' claiming the MATD is under CNRD control. Indeed, military personnel run the administration, with a retired general leading it and the country's governors, prefects and sub-prefects all hailing from its ranks. At the local level, the CNRD has removed any remaining checks and balances by dismissing elected mayors and appointing interim ones, giving the junta full control over the organization of the elections.
Meanwhile, repression of dissenting voices has become particularly harsh. The CNRD has shut down major broadcast media outlets and banned protests. On the occasions that political parties and civil society groups have tried to defy the ban, security forces have responded violently. In total, there have been nearly 60 deaths in various protests between June 2022 and December 2024, according to Human Rights Watch.
While protest-related killings had already occurred under Conde, a new type of repression has emerged under the junta: enforced disappearances. Civil society leaders Mamadou Billo Bah and Fonike Mengue, journalist Habib Marouane Camara, and government official Saadou Nimaga were kidnapped in 2024, and no one has heard from them since. Today, CNRD opponents live in fear. The repression has even reached inside the CNRD itself: Gen. Sadiba Koulibaly, whom the CNRD had appointed chief of General Staff, fell out of favor and died in custody under suspicious circumstances in 2024.
The recent presidential pardon granted to Moussa Dadis Camara, who headed a previous junta in 2008-2009, appears to be part of a strategy to solidify alliances ahead of the upcoming election. Camara was sentenced to 20 years in prison last year for crimes against humanity related to his role in the September 2009 Conakry Stadium massacre, when security forces under his control trapped attendees of an opposition rally in the stadium, killing more than 150 and raping over 100 women. The CNRD had organized Camara's trial to appeal to the international community by marking a break with the impunity that has historically prevailed in the country.
While the pardon came as a shock to victims and human rights advocates, it offers the CNRD many political benefits. To begin with, it will help Doumbouya win support in Camara's home region, Forest Guinea, where the latter remains popular. It also helps him tighten his grip on the military, which includes many enlisted personnel from the region who were upset by Camara's sentencing. Finally, it was likely an attempt to calm popular sentiments in Forest Guinea following a more recent tragedy at Nzerekore stadium, in the regional capital, in December 2024, when a police intervention in an overcrowded stadium during a football match in Doumbouya's honor caused a stampede, resulting in around 100 deaths. Local nongovernmental organizations have accused the authorities of hiding bodies in an attempted cover-up.
Still, Doumbouya does not appear at ease. He never moves without being accompanied by a large contingent of Special Forces personnel; the elite unit, which Doumbouya led before his coup, has now become a de facto presidential guard. He rarely speaks in public and makes few nonspeaking appearances either. He lives in seclusion, mostly on an island off the coast of Conakry, and has delegated the running of the country to close associates, particularly his chief of staff, Djiba Diakite, and the secretary-general of the Presidency, Gen. Amara Camara.
Incidents such as the death of Koulibaly in custody and the spectacular escape from prison in 2023 of Claude Pivi—one of the military men indicted for the September 2009 massacre who clearly had inside help for his escape, though he was later recaptured—have made Doumbouya suspicious of his own military. Some sources report tensions between the well-equipped and well-paid Special Forces and the regular army. Another coup is not out of the question.
The momentum in Guinea is clearly not moving in the direction of democracy. As elsewhere in West Africa, a military regime is consolidating its power, yet another sign of a new era in the region. Unlike during the 1990-2020 period, when military regimes often failed to stay in power, the years since 2020 are reminiscent of the Cold War era, when military rulers stuck around for years.
Doumbouya clearly intends to do the same in Guinea. But it remains to be seen whether he, or some other rival in uniform, succeeds.
Tangi Bihan is a journalist based in Guinea, where he is a correspondent for Radio France Internationale (RFI). He writes also for Afrique XXI and Le Monde diplomatique.
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