Guinea's Political Parties Face Survival Test As Junta Orders Mass Cull

Aboubacarkhoraa / Wikimedia Commons

A military parade (file photo).

30 October 2024

Radio France Internationale

More than 100 political parties in Guinea face a three-month battle for survival after the ruling junta published the results of a probe designed to bring order to the country's political landscape.

A 180-page report by the Ministry of Territorial Administration examined 211 parties, ordering 53 dissolved and 54 suspended for three months.

Another 67 parties were placed under observation, being given three months to provide the appropriate documents to the ministry. If they fail to comply, they face suspension.

Thirty-seven parties were not assessed.

"The end result is that for the 53 parties dissolved, there are illegible registrations or registrations with falsified signatures of ministers," said Camara Touré Djénabou, who coordinates civil status reforms at the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decentralisation.

Some parties, she added, date back to the early 1990s and have never held a bank account.

Djénabou said that parties under observation scored at least 70 percent on compliance but need to meet the remaining 30 percent in the coming three months.

'Necessary clean up'

The department's minister, Ibrahim Khalila Condé, defended the survey as a necessary "clean-up" of Guinea's political arena.

However, critics argue it's a move to exclude key figures like ousted president Alpha Condé, former presidential candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo, and former prime minister Sidya Touré, all of whom are currently in exile.

"We at the UFDG have always said that the ministry evaluates the entities for which it is responsible," Souleymane de Souza Konaté, a spokesperson for the Union des Forces Démocratiques de Guinée (UFDG), told RFI.

"It is in this capacity that we lent ourselves to the exercise because we found it legitimate."

Lieutenant Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who took power in September 2021, has pledged to restore civilian rule by the end of 2024.

Since he seized control, many political opponents have faced arrest or exile.

The junta has banned demonstrations, dissolved a collective calling for the return of civilians to power and withdrawn some private media licences.

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