West African countries on Friday demanded an immediate civilian transition in Mali and elections within 12 months as they considered sanctions after rebel troops toppled the country’s president and seized power.

The demands were spelt out after the new junta released ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, seized in the August 18 coup, but also apparently granted their new chief the powers of head of state.

The coup shocked Mali’s West African neighbours and ally France, heightening worries over instability in a country already struggling with an Islamist insurgency, ethnic violence and economic stagnation.

After a video summit, the 15-nation Economic Community of West Africa State called on the junta “to initiate a civil transition immediately” and the “rapid establishment of a government to (…) prepare the legislative and presidential elections within 12 months.”

In a closing statement, Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, who also chairs ECOWAS, said sanctions would be “gradually lifted depending on the implementation” of the bloc’s requests.

“Staging coups is a serious sickness for a country,” he said in earlier remarks. “To cure them, there’s only one prescription: sanctions.”

ECOWAS slapped sanctions on Mali after the August coup, including a closure of borders and ban on trade and financial flows.

It demanded the release of Keita and other detained leaders and insisted on a swift return to civilian rule.

Keita, 75, was elected in 2013 as a unifying figure in a fractured country and was returned in 2018 for a second five-year term.

But his popularity crashed as he failed to counter the country’s raging jihadist insurgency and brake Mali’s downward economic spiral.

After an escalating series of mass protests, young army officers mutinied on August 18, seizing Keita and other leaders and declaring they now governed the country.

They have called the junta the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), led by a 37-year-old colonel, Assimi Goita.

Friday’s video summit came after a three-day ECOWAS visit foundered over a timetable for civilian transition, and the junta’s announcement on the eve of the conference that Keita had been freed.

Issoufou said Keita had told the ECOWAS envoys “that he resigned quite freely, convinced that this decision was necessary for peace and stability in Mali.”

Handover issue

Within hours of taking control, the junta promised to enact a political transition and stage elections within a “reasonable time.”

According to the chief ECOWAS envoy, former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, the coup leaders wanted a three-year handover period.

This was rejected by the ECOWAS team, which called for an interim government, “headed by a civilian or retired military officer, to last for six or nine months, and maximum of 12 calendar months,” Jonathan said on Wednesday.

ECOWAS on Friday said that the person overseeing the handover should be “an individual, civilian, recognised… for their intellectual and moral standing” and that there should be a “civilian prime minister.”

“No military structure should be above the transition president,” it said.

But a new document posted on Mali’s Official Journal, a gazette which publishes new laws and regulations, invests the head of the CNSP with the powers of the head of state.

Named “Basic Act N°001/CNSP,” the document was posted online on Thursday.

The CNSP “designates a president who assures the duty of the head of state… embodying national unity… and guaranteeing national independence, territorial integrity… (and) respect for international agreements,” it says.

This individual appoints senior civil servants and military and “accredits” foreign ambassadors, according to the document. AFP has asked the junta’s spokesman to confirm its authenticity.

Jihadist warning

In other remarks, Issoufou lashed the Malian military for launching the coup when the country was in the throes of an eight-year-old jihadist insurgency.

Thousands of lives have been lost, hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes and swathes of the country have been abandoned to armed Islamists by the state.

The junta “is refusing to return to the barracks at a time when, more than ever, the army is required to focus on its traditional mission,” Issoufou said.

He warned that the jihadists sought to “exploit the current institutional void” — a scenario that happened after Mali’s last coup in 2008.

(AFP)

Mali’s new military rulers said Thursday that former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was detained during the country’s coup on August 18, had been freed.

The announcement came on the eve of a summit by Mali’s neighbours, who are to decide whether to ratchet up pressure on the fledgling junta.

Keita’s ousting by rebel troops sent shockwaves through the region and in France, which sees Mali as a linchpin in its campaign against jihadism in the Sahel, where more than 5,000 French troops are based.

“President IBK is free in his movements, he’s at home,” a spokesman for the junta, Djibrila Maiga, told AFP, referring to Keita by his initials, as many Malians do.

The junta, calling itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), said on Facebook it was “informing public and international opinion that former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been released and is currently in his residence”.

A Keita relative, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 75-year-old former leader had returned overnight to his house in the Sebenikoro district of the capital Bamako.

The source did not say whether he was still subject to any restrictions.

Keita, prime minister Boubou Cisse and other senior officials were seized by young officers who mutinied at a base near Bamako.

In the early hours of August 19, Keita appeared on national TV to announce his resignation, saying he had had no other choice, and wanted to avoid “bloodshed”.

His release — and other leaders — is a key demand of Mali’s neighbours, its ally France and international organisations, including the African Union and European Union.

Former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, heading a team from the regional bloc ECOWAS, was given access to Keita last Saturday, and said he seemed “very fine.”

The announcement Thursday came on the eve of a virtual summit by the 15-nation ECOWAS — the Economic Community of West African States — which has imposed sanctions against Mali for the coup.

Those measures include a closure of borders and a ban on trade that threaten to worsen Mali’s already severe social and economic troubles.

Jonathan’s three-day mission to Bamako foundered on the question of the transition to civilian rule.

The junta have promised to enact a political transition and stage elections within a “reasonable time” but not spelt out details.

Discussing progress with Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, Jonathan said the coup leaders wanted to stay in power for a three-year transition period, an offer rejected by the mediators, according to a statement from the presidency.

“We also told them that what would be acceptable to ECOWAS was an Interim Government, headed by a civilian or retired military officer, to last for six or nine months, and maximum of 12 calendar months,” Jonathan was quoted as saying in the presidency statement late Wednesday.

Jihadist worries

Keita was elected in 2013 as a unifying figure in a fractured country and was returned in 2018 for a second five-year term.

But his popularity plummeted as he failed to counter a bloody jihadist campaign that has claimed thousands of lives and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, and to reverse the country’s downward economic spiral.

In a visit to the Estonian capital of Tallinn on Thursday, the head of the French armed forces, Francois Lecointre, said, “Our wish is to maintain the Malian army’s commitment in the fight against armed terrorist groups.”

He pointed to a campaign launched earlier this year to regain control over the strategic “three-border” zone, where the frontiers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso come together.

“We are going to see if the Malian armed forces are able to maintain the momentum… we have told them that this appears essential to us,” said Lecointre.

“The corps commanders are still there, the area commanders are still there, these aren’t people who took part in the coup, and so we are continuing to cooperate with them,” he said.

(AFP)

Supporters of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who lives in exile in Brussels after losing a civil war in 2011, said Wednesday that they would file a candidacy in his name for October’s election. The announcement comes a day after an Ivorian court confirmed the decision to strike off the ex-leader from the electoral list due to a 20-year prison sentence.

A pro-Gbagbo coalition called Together for Democracy and Sovereignty said in a statement “it will submit president Laurent Gbagbo’s candidacy, in line with scheduled procedures”.

But a day earlier, a court in Ivory Coast confirmed the decision of the country’s electoral commission to strike off Gbagbo from the electoral list, his lawyer told AFP Tuesday. “It’s a definitive no,” Claude Mentenon told AFP, adding that there was no further legal recourse inside Ivory Coast.

Election officials had already rejected appeals by Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to compete in the October 31 presidential election, in which the incumbent Alassane Ouattara is running for re-election.

Any candidate convicted of crime automatically struck from list

President of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, said back in August, when the revised electoral list was revealed, that anyone convicted of a crime would be struck from the list of candidates.

Four contenders in all were barred from standing in the election on those grounds.

The world’s top cocoa grower remains scarred by a brief civil war that erupted after 2010 elections, when Gbagbo, then president, refused to cede to the victor, Ouattara. Months of ensuing violence claimed around 3,000 lives.

Gbagbo, who is currently living in Belgium, was freed conditionally by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity. The prosecution has appealed that ruling.

But he was sentenced in absentia to a 20-year term last November for the “looting” of the local branch of the Central Bank of the West African States (BCEAO) during the post-election crisis.

In theory at least, he could be jailed on his return, which makes any return to Ivory Coast a sensitive political issue three months before the presidential election.

The 2020 presidential elections were already set to be tense, after years of political turbulence.

Violence that followed Ouattara’s announcement that he is seeking a third term has claimed at least eight lives in August.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The European Union has suspended its training missions in Mali after the military coup this month that removed President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita from power, EU officials said on Wednesday.

The two missions training Mali’s army and police as part of international efforts to stabilize Mali and extend the state’s authority are frozen because they were designed to support “the legitimate national authorities,” one EU official said.

Officials said the suspension was temporary. West African mediators and Mali’s coup leaders are discussing the possibility of a transitional government, which could allow the EU to eventually resume training in partnership with the United Nations.

 The coup has raised the prospects of further political turmoil in Mali which, like other countries in the region, is facing an expanding threat from Islamist militants.

 EU defense ministers meeting in Berlin on Wednesday will discuss the situation in Mali, the officials said.

Drawn up in late 2012 to help Mali’s army regain control of the country after France drove out militants in the north, the EU military mission (EUTM Mali) has more than 600 soldiers from 28 European countries including EU and non-member states.

 Its headquarters in Mali’s capital Bamako was targeted by militants in 2016, although no personnel were hurt.

 The EU agreed in 2014 an additional civilian mission (EUCAP Sahel Mali), sending experts to give advice and training to the internal security forces in Mali, the police, Gendarmerie and National Guard.

 EU training will continue in neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso, officials said.

(Source: Agencies)

The international community increased pressure on the military junta that has seized power in Mali, as the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) suspended the nation from its membership Tuesday.

Its leadership agreed the move at an extraordinary session held via videoconference, while adding that it would maintain any cooperation that would help the civilian population and a transition to democracy.

The decision came a day after envoys from the West African bloc ECOWAS and the new military rulers said they had failed to agree on a timetable to return Mali to democratic rule.

The OIF also called for the liberation of the ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who stepped down from power last week after the military revolt, saying he wanted to avoid bloodshed.

And they called for the establishment, as soon as possible, of “a transition government led by an civilian authority”. The OIF said it would be sending a high-delegation to Mali in the coming days.

The international community has already condemned the August 18 coup and ECOWAS has suspended Mali from its ranks.

ECOWAS has so far taken the lead in the international community in trying to negotiate a timetable for a return to civilian rule with the country’s new military leaders.

But both sides said Monday they had failed to reach agreement — and also that Keita no longer wanted to be restored to be power, which had been one of the initial demands made by ECOWAS.

Keita was elected in 2013 after running a campaign in which he pitched himself as a unifying force in a fractured country.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2018 but failed to make headway against the jihadists, and the ethnic unrest they ignited in the centre of the country further damaged an already sickly economy.

An outcry over the results of long-delayed legislative elections in April cemented his unpopular reputation, and in June a protest movement was born aimed at forcing him to resign.

Source: AFP

West African envoys resumed talks with Mali’s new military rulers on Monday as the junta denied it had decided on a three-year blueprint for restoring civilian rule.

Colonel Ismael Wague, spokesman for the rebel officers who seized power last Tuesday, insisted that the transition remained undecided as the third day of talks with the regional bloc ECOWAS got underway.

“I want to make clear at this stage of discussions with the ECOWAS mediation team that nothing has been decided,” he said at the defence ministry in Bamako.

“At no point have we talked about military-majority government,” he said.

“Any decision relating to the scale of the transition, the transition president, the formation of the government will be done among Malians” and be followed by “mass consultation,” he said.

ECOWAS flew a high-level mission to Bamako on Saturday led by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, four days after mutinying troops seized power and detained 75-year-old President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The coup sent shockwaves among Mali’s neighbours, which fear that the country – already beset by a jihadist insurgency and moribund economy – could spiral into chaos.

A source in the visiting delegation on Sunday said the junta “has affirmed that it wants a three-year transition to review the foundations of the Malian state. This transition will be directed by a body led by a soldier, who will also be head of state.

“The government will also be predominantly composed of soldiers” under the proposal, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Additionally, a junta official confirmed to AFP that “the three-year transition would have a military president and a government mostly composed of soldiers.”

ECOWAS reaction

This timeframe contrasts with the junta’s vow, within hours of taking over on August 18, that elections would be held within a “reasonable” timeframe.

Many Malians took to social media on Monday to attack the transition scheme.

It also compares starkly with demands by the 15-nation ECOWAS – the Economic Community of West African States – for the “immediate return of constitutional order.”

The bloc’s leaders are to confer in a virtual summit on Wednesday as to how to proceed, mindful of Mali’s last coup in 2012, which led to a regional revolt that metastasised into a jihadist insurgency.

They have already decided to close Mali’s borders and issued threats to impose sanctions against the coup leaders.

The bloc has already intervened in several crises in West Africa, including The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Keita was elected in 2013 after running a campaign in which he pitched himself as a unifying force in a fractured country.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2018 but failed to make headway against the jihadists, and the ethnic unrest they ignited in the centre of the country further damaged an already sickly economy.

An outcry over the results of long-delayed legislative elections in April cemented his unpopular reputation, and in June a protest movement was born aimed at forcing him to resign.

ECOWAS has stood by Keita and called for him to be restored to office, although this demand has been eclipsed since the start of the talks by the issue of his detention.

Jonathan met Keita on Saturday and said he seemed “very fine”.

The ECOWAS and junta sources said on Monday that Mali’s new rulers had agreed to free the ousted president and that he would be able to return to his home in Bamako.

The coup leaders say they are holding 17 leaders at a barracks about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city after releasing two others last week.

Source: AFP

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara was formally chosen by his party Saturday to run for a third term in an October election, despite opposition charges it is unconstitutional. The decision came a day after election authorities rejected the candidacies of the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, and ex-rebel leader Guillaume Soro.

Ouattara, who has been in power since 2010,  said in March that he would not stand again but changed his position after the death of prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly — seen as his anointed successor — in July.

The announcement came a day after the country’s election authorities rejected appeals by Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to run in the country’s October election.

Outtara’s decision to contest a third term in October has already triggered outrage among opposition and civil society groups, who labelled it a “coup” that risked triggering chaos.

The constitution limits presidents to two terms, but 78-year-old Ouattara — who has served two five-year terms since 2010 — and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock.

His ruling Houphouetist Rally for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party said Ouattara was nominated as its candidate at an event attended by 100,000 people in an Abidjan stadium.

“We remain focused on the election, with a record to defend and a project to propose to Ivorians,” party spokesman Mamadou Touré told AFP, branding the street demonstrations against Ouattara’s candidacy a “dismal failure”.

Rival candidates rejected

On Friday, the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) rejected appeals by Gbagbo and Soro to run in the October election.

“The decisions have been posted since the 18th, the CEI has not granted their requests,” Inza Kigbafori, the CEI communications manager, told AFP.

The shock news heightened tensions before October 31 vote, which takes place in the shadow cast by violence following 2010’s election that killed around 3,000 people.

Ivory Coast, one of the world’s biggest producers of coffee and cocoa, is still traumatised by the post-electoral violence after the 2010 vote, when Gbagbo refused to cede to the victor, Ouattara.

Gbagbo was freed conditionally by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity.

His return to Ivory Coast would be sensitive before the presidential election. His Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party urged him to throw his hat in the electoral ring.

Soro, a former rebel leader, has been forced into self-imposed exile in France in the face of a long list of legal problems at home.

He was a leader in a 2002 revolt that sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.

He was once an ally of Ouattara, helping him to power during the post-election crisis in 2010. The two eventually fell out.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

An emergency summit of the West African bloc ECOWAS called Thursday for the reinstatement of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita as Mali’s president after he was deposed in a military coup on Tuesday. West African leaders said they would soon head to the country amid growing concerns about regional stability.

West African presidents plan to fly to Mali as regional powers escalate efforts to block a coup-driven regime change, two sources said, after an opposition coalition there joined the junta in rejecting foreign interference.

Leaders of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) convened over the crisis on Thursday, after it suspended Mali, shut off borders and halted financial flows in response to Tuesday’s overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The bloc plans to send a delegation of presidents including the leaders of Niger, Senegal and Ghana to Mali’s capital, Bamako, to seek a resolution to the crisis, a regional diplomat and a senior official told Reuters.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the information.

The coup, which has rocked a country already in the grip of a jihadist insurgency and civil unrest, has been met with almost universal condemnation abroad.

Within Mali, the M5-RFP coalition of opposition groups said it was working with the mutineers. It labelled ECOWAS’s initial response to the coup over-reaction stemming from some regional leaders’ fears that it could set off unrest in their countries.

“(The leaders) are on an all-out drive to set ECOWAS against Mali,” said M5-RFP spokesman Nouhoum Togo.

The capital Bamako was calm for the second straight day on Thursday, a Reuters reporter said, as people appeared to heed earlier calls from junta spokesman Colonel Ismael Wague to return to work and go about their daily lives.

Marc-Andre Boisvert, an independent researcher on the Malian security forces, said the senior mutineers were all respected army colonels.

“It was a coup led by combat-experienced, not personality-driven  officers,” he said “I expect they were selected to be the image of the coup as they are respected and close to the (ordinary) soldiers.”

ECOWAS is expected to release a statement outlining its next steps later on Thursday.

In July, an ECOWAS delegation failed to broker an agreement between Keita and the opposition, who were leading large-scale protests against the government.

Leaders attending the bloc’s virtual summit said the political upheaval in Mali could destabilise the entire region.

“The events in Mali (have).. grave consequences for the peace and security of West Africa,” Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari tweeted.

The coup has fuelled concerns it could disrupt a military campaign against jihadists linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State operating in northern and central Mali and West Africa’s wider Sahel region.

France will continue its Mali-based military operations against Islamist fighters, its armed forces minister said on Thursday.

Landlocked Mali has struggled to regain stability since a Tuareg uprising in 2012 which was hijacked by al Qaeda-linked militants, and a subsequent coup in the capital plunged the country into chaos.

(REUTERS)

Military coup leaders in Mali faced a barrage of condemnation on Wednesday from international powers, with the African Union suspending the country’s membership a day after mutinying soldiers detained President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita following months of protests against his rule.

The chorus of disapproval included statements from the African Union (AU), the European Union and the United States demanding that the military leaders release Keita, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse and other officials detained on Tuesday.

Keita – under pressure from months of protests over economic stagnation, corruption and a continuing Islamist insurgency – said in a televised address hours after he was detained that coup leaders had given him no choice but to resign.

Jubilant crowds cheered the rebels as they arrived in central Bamako on Tuesday. Tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Bamako since June calling for Keita to resign over what they say are his failures to address security and economic woes.

Mali coup ‘diplomatic nightmare for France’

The mutinous soldiers who staged the coup, who have called themselves the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, have promised a transition to civil political rule with elections to be held in a “reasonable amount of time”. In the meantime they have closed the country’s borders and announced a curfew.

A spokesman for the junta, Ismael Wague, said France’s anti-jihadist Barkhane force and the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali as well as forces from neighbouring countries were “partners for stability and restoring security”.

However, France and other international powers as well as the AU have denounced the mutiny, fearful that the fall of Keita could further destabilise the former French colony and West Africa’s entire Sahel region.

The AU has suspended Mali’s membership in response to the military’s seizure of power and the detention of the president, the bloc announced in a tweet on Wednesday. The suspension will last until constitutional order is restored, it said, demanding the release of the deposed president and other senior officials.

The current chairman of the AU, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, called for the “immediate return to civilian rule”.

An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council convened on Wednesday condemned the mutiny and urged the soldiers to release all detained government officials without delay. The 15 members “underlined the urgent need to restore rule of law and to move towards the return to constitutional order”, according to a statement.

‘Unconstitutional’

The influential West African regional bloc ECOWAS said it was sending a high-level delegation to “ensure the immediate return to constitutional order”. The 15-nation bloc – which includes Mali – also said that it would suspend the country from its internal decision-making bodies.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that “the fight against terrorist groups and the defence of democracy and the rule of law are inseparable”, referring to the situation in Mali.

“To leave is to provoke instability and to weaken our fight. It is not acceptable,” the French president wrote on Twitter, calling for power to be “returned to civilians,” for “milestones (to be) laid for a return to constitutional order” and for the Malian president and his prime minister to be freed.

French troops have been fighting in the country since 2013, after Mali asked it to help regain territory seized by Islamist extremists who had hijacked a Touareg rebellion in the country’s northern desert regions the previous year.

The French military succeeded in this initial task – but the jihadist insurgency has since spread throughout Mali and across the border to Niger and Burkina Faso.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced Keita’s overthrow in a statement on Wednesday. “The United States strongly condemns the August 18 mutiny in Mali as we would condemn any forcible seizure of power,” he said. “The freedom and safety of detained government officials and their families must be ensured.”

The EU condemned the events in Mali as “unconstitutional”.

“The European Union condemns the attempted coup d’état under way in Mali and rejects all unconstitutional change,” the bloc’s diplomatic chief, Josep Borrell, said in a statement Tuesday.

Neighbouring Algeria has also rejected the coup. “Algeria reiterates its firm rejection of any anti-constitutional change of government,” the foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. It said Algeria was following with “concern” developments in Mali, with which it shares an almost 1,400-kilometre (850-mile) border.

Morocco also reacted to the coup on Wednesday, stressing the need for “stability” in Mali, calling for “responsible dialogue, respect for constitutional order and the preservation of democratic gains.”

In a statement shortly after the coup Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Malians to protect their democratic institutions and called for the “immediate and unconditional release” of Mali’s president.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on the events later on Wednesday.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)

Guinea’s ruling party on Thursday urged President Alpha Conde to seek a third term in elections due this year, a scenario that has sparked clashes in the West African state.

Under Guinea’s constitution, presidents may only serve two terms.

Conde, 82, was elected president in 2010 and again in 2015. But this year he pushed through a revamped constitution that opponents say was crafted to reset the term counter, enabling him to run again.

His Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) party announced that it wanted Conde to run again at a convention in the capital Conakry.

Party members are issuing a “plea to President Alpha Conde to accept the will of the people to be the RPG’s sole candidate,” MP Diakagbe Kaba told delegates.

The president has yet to formally respond to the request. He has previously said that “the party will decide” who goes forward to the poll.

Guinea’s electoral commission has proposed the presidential election be held on October 18, but Conde has yet to sign off on a date.

Thursday’s announcement is likely to incense Guinea’s embattled opposition, which has staged mass rallies since October against the possibility of Conde running for a third term.

Security forces in the former French colony repeatedly cracked down on the protests, in which several dozen civilians were killed.

Opposition figures also attempted to organise a boycott of the referendum in March, but the vote went ahead despite protests.

According to the official results, the constitution was approved by 91.59 percent of those voting, with a turnout of 61 percent

Conde is a former opposition figure himself who was jailed under Guinea’s previous iron-fisted regimes.

Hopes of a new political dawn flowered when Conde became Guinea’s first democratically elected president in 2010, but critics say he has become increasingly authoritarian.

Source: AFP