Guinea ruling party wins parliamentary polls

President Conde’s allies take majority of seats in first parliamentary election in decade, but opposition shuns result.

Alpha Conde became Guinea's first elected president in 2010 [AFP]

Guinea’s ruling party and its allies came have won the nation’s first parliamentary elections in a decade, taking 60 of the 114 seats in the national assembly, according to electoral commission results.

The provisional results released late on Friday showed that Alpha Conde’s Rally of the Guinean People party obtained 53 seats and its small party allies seven in the elections held last month.

The opposition UFDG party, led by Conde’s rival, Cellou Dalein Diallo, won 37 seats while former Prime Minister Sidya Toure’s UFR secured 10 seats. They have said they would not recognise the results.

Smaller parties won the remaining seats. 

Conde became the country’s first democratically elected president in 2010 and the parliamentary election was due to complete the long-delayed transition back to civilian rule following a 2008 military coup.

The results came nearly three weeks after voters cast ballots. Both sides have accused the other of using the delay to tamper with the vote.

Ruling party spokesman Moustapha Naite said although it was relieved by the announcement of the results, the party has filed complaints with the Supreme Court over activities in some districts.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, even before the results were announced, appealed on Friday for “all parties to maintain calm and resolve all differences by legal means”.

International observers said on October 9 that there were serious flaws in the election which affected the credibility of the vote.

“Breaches and irregularities were observed in a certain number of constituencies, preventing a significant number of votes from being taken into account,” they said in a joint statement. 

The observers included the region’s top UN envoy Said Djinnit as well as representatives from the European Union and west African bloc ECOWAS.

Source: News Agencies