Guinea: Incumbent president Conde expected to be re-elected in tight race

Millions of Guineans voted peacefully on Sunday in the West African country’s presidential and general election.

The incumbent president, Alpha Conde, 77, is widely expected to win a second and final mandate, although the results are expected to be close enough to require a second round, against main rival Cellou Dalein Diallo.

Casting his vote in the Conakry neighborhood of Boulbinet, Conde, reiterated an earlier call for calm. “I hope things go well because Guinea needs peace, Guinea needs unity,” he told reporters.

At some polling stations, voting began only a few minutes behind schedule but in others there were complaints that paperwork and officials had not arrived by late morning.

Some voters’ names were absent from the register. The Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) admitted on Saturday that about 7 percent of the electorate or hundreds of thousands of voters had not received cards, although it was not clear if this was deliberate or whether it had disadvantaged a particular party. It later extended voting by two hours to allow those affected by organizational delays to participate.

Counting began late on Sunday and the electoral commission is officially supposed to release results within 72 hours. An official said, however, that the provisional outcome was not expected before October 15 or 16.

Conde’s campaign, whose slogan is “progress is on the march”, has championed infrastructure projects to improve power supply in the country. His opponents have sought to capitalize on his shortcomings such as the nearly two-year-old battle against the Ebola virus and declining investment in the mining sector.

But in a milestone for Guinea, no new Ebola cases were reported last week, although hundreds of people connected to the sick remain under surveillance.