In Guinea, the junta unveils a transition plan criticized by the opposition

The Minister of Territorial Administration and Decentralization, Mory Condé, detailed on Friday ten milestones should lead to the return of power to elected civilians, without giving a timetable or setting a deadline, while the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is calling on Conakry to present no later than April 25 a acceptable timeline for transition.

Mr. Condé made these remarks at the opening of the inclusive consultation framework, a new forum supposed to facilitate the political transition after the military coup in September. These meetings, just like the conference of reconciliation launched at the end of March by the junta in power, are boycotted by a number of political organisations.

According to the sequence described by the Minister, the handing over of power to civilians must be preceded by the general population censusof administrative census for the purpose of civil statusof the establishment of the electoral registerof drafting of the new Constitutionof the organization of the referendum pollof drafting texts of organic lawsbefore the organization of local elections then legislative, the establishment of national institutions resulting from the new Constitution and finally the organization of the presidential election.

A transition, if you want it effective, we don’t need all these steps that are listedreacted on Saturday Édouard Zoutomou Kpoghomou, president of a member party of the National Alliance for Alternation and Democracy (ANAD), a coalition of around twenty parties boycotting the reconciliation conference and the inclusive consultation framework.

It’s done on purpose to play on time, that’s allhe told theFrance Media AgencyAFP.

Minister, we have at least four years to go, and if that’s the case, it’s the duty of a legal regime to do everything you’re suggesting to us here.had already risen the day before Cheick Tidiane Traoré, leader of the Movement for the Republic (MPR), one of the participants who attended Mr. Condé’s presentation.

In a letter whoseFrance Media AgencyAFP obtained a copy, Mr. Condé sent a request for timeline proposal to the president of theNational Alliance for Alternation and Democracy ANADasking him to send him at the latest April 20 a time proposal for each of the ten stages of the transition desired by the government.

According to political sources, the same letter was sent to all parties and formations in the country, whether or not they participated in Friday’s meeting.

Colonel Mamady Doumbouya seized power by force on September 5, 2021 in Conakry, overthrowing octogenarian President Alpha Condé, who had been in office since late 2010 and whose last years as head of state were marked by months of dissent severely repressed.

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The leader of the putschists, Lieutenant-Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, on his arrival at the People’s Palace, seat of the National Assembly, on September 6.

Photo: Getty Images/AFP/CELLOU BINANI

Colonel Doumbouya has since had himself invested as President of the Republic and has pledged to return power to elected civilians, but without ever saying when.

Refusing to allow a deadline to be dictated by the Economic Community of West African StatesECOWAS or whoever, the officer assures that the calendar will be set by the National Transitional Council (CNT), an assembly acting as a legislative body, of which he himself appointed the 81 members, who have been sitting since February.

The Economic Community of West African StatesECOWASwhich unsuccessfully insisted on the need to hold elections within six months of the September coup, suspended Guinea from its organs and imposed individual sanctions on members of the junta.

The regional organization threatened on March 25 to impose on the country economic and financial sanctions wider immediately after April 25 if the junta does not comply with its ultimatum on the timetable for restoring power to civilians.