Guinea: WACSOF Reacts to Military Coup, Makes Call

By Development Diaries
September 10, 2021

The West African Civil Society Forum (WACSOF) has condemned the military’s removal of Alpha Condé from office as President of Guinea.

Soldiers appeared to have ousted Guinea’s long-serving president on 05 September, telling the West African nation they had dissolved its government and constitution and closed its land and air borders.

Condé, it is understood, is being held in military detention.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the African Union have condemned the apparent coup and demanded the immediate release of the president.

‘I strongly condemn any takeover of the government by force of the gun and call for the immediate release of President Alpha Condé’, Guterres tweeted.

The coup leader and head of the country’s special forces, Col Mamadi Doumbouya, said ‘poverty and endemic corruption’ had driven his forces to remove Condé from office.

‘We have dissolved government and institutions’, Doumbouya, draped in Guinea’s national flag and surrounded by eight other armed soldiers, said on state television.

‘We are going to rewrite a constitution together’.

Condé won a third term in October 2020 after changing the constitution to allow him to stand again, triggering violent protests from the opposition.

‘WACSOF condemns any military coup in Africa and particularly in West Africa’, the umbrella network of civil society organisations (CSOs) from the 15 countries of ECOWAS said in a statement.

‘WACSOF recalls to this effect the provisions of Article One (e) of the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance which stipulates that “The armed forces must be apolitical and must be under the command of a legally constituted political authority; no serving member of the armed forces may seek to run for elective political”.

‘WACSOF therefore calls for a very fast return to civilian governance in strict compliance with the constitution of the Republic of Guinea as well as all applicable laws.

‘WACSOF demands that the transition be carried out by civilians for a quick process’.

In its immediate reaction, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) threatened to impose sanctions after what its chairman, Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, called an attempted coup.

For its part, the African Union said it would meet urgently and take ‘appropriate measures’ while Nigeria, a regional power, called for a return to constitutional order.

Condé, 83, was first elected in 2010 in the country’s first democratic transfer of power.

He pushed through a change in the constitution following a referendum that effectively reset the two-term limit in the constitution.

Opposition supporters boycotted the referendum and held widespread protests over the amendments, resulting in clashes with security forces and, consequently, arrest of activists.

Source: WACSOF