Guinea’s opposition National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), says it will not abide by what it called an illegal decision to ban all street protests against the outcome of last month’s election.
The FNDC accused the government of pursuing a scheme that promotes “repression, the abuse of power and totalitarianism.”
Is Guinea on the brink of falling again into the infernal cycle of socio-political demonstrations?
Everything points to this direction for many observers, because Alpha Conde’s re-election on October 18, far from plugging the country’s widening political divide has aggravated them.
Several leaders of the main opposition Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG) have been arrested.
The UFDG, which rejects Alpha Conde’s victory, called for demonstrations on November 25 to “demand the truth about the vote and the release of political prisoners.”
On Sunday the government announced the suspension on reasons related to curbing the spread of the coronavirus of mass protests across the country.
The ‘anti-third term movement’ said it will leave nothing to chance in its bid to challenge this decision.
“The FNDC denounces this absurd and ridiculous decision by the Guinean state, when we know that the health crisis that our country is struggling to contain was caused and maintained by this clan, which used the Covid-19 as a political instrument against opponents to the third term project.”
According to the leaders of the protest movement, “the government continues to take advantage of this pandemic to kill, kidnap and imprison FNDC leaders and activists.”
Since March 2020, the opposition’s successive calls for a mass civil disobedience have been systematically banned.
ARD/cgd/fss/as/APA