Guinea State of Emergency Contingent on Certifying Election Results

Guinea is under a state of emergency until the supreme court certifies results of the presidential election. The losing candidate in that vote wants the court to annul results from areas where his supporters were displaced by pre-election violence.

Guinea's electoral law gives the supreme court until next Tuesday to certify provisional results that show long-time opposition leader Alpha Conde defeating former prime minister Cellou Diallo.

Diallo says the high court should not certify those results before it annuls votes that he says are fraudulent. He says it is his constitutional right to contest the results, and will do so before the supreme court.

The state of emergency was declared after violence between Diallo supporters and security forces. Diallo says those forces are unfairly targeting his supporters and are helping civilian militia attack members of his ethnic group in much the same way that he says they did before the vote.

Diallo says what is going on now endangers the social peace and national unity that is the responsibility of military ruler General Sekouba Konate.

He says his alliance notified authorities about violence against its supporters in the districts of Siguiri and Kouroussa, before the vote, but so far there has been no investigation. No one has been questioned about that violence, he says. No one from Mr. Conde's party, none of the local authorities.

Diallo's petition before the supreme court says results from Siguiri and Kouroussa should be annulled because his supporters were not present to vote and his party could only post observers at a fraction of polling stations on election day because they were afraid.

Conde says the Diallo campaign was trying to annul results from Siguiri and Kouroussa even before people voted.

Conde says there were plenty of other irregularities on election day, both in upper Guinea and in the Fouta Djallon region where Diallo did well. Before the pronouncement of provisional results, the Conde campaign challenged some of those returns as well.

If the supreme court were to throw out all of the results from Siguiri and Kouroussa as Diallo is requesting, he would end up with more total votes than Conde.