Chaos In Guinea As Coup Soldiers On

After over a year of violent protests, sparked by the reelection - which skirted around the country’s two term limit - of President Alpha Conde for a third time, triggered outcries of cheating and fraud, Guinea finds itself once again on the precipice of bedlam.

Back in March 2020, as Guinea prepared for the presidential elections, the then President Alpha Conde, controversially forced through a new constitution that would allow him to run for a third term. Outrage and anger of the change in the constitution so close to the election was further fueled by what many saw as a stolen election by the 83 year old when he was declared the winner in November of the same year.

Violent protests have raged on ever since, culminating in Sunday’s military coup d'etat.

Following reports of gunfire ringing out in the capitol Conakry early Sunday morning and the circulation of an unverified video showing the president surrounded by soldiers on social media, the military took control of the state television network to formally declare what had taken place.

(Ousted President Alpha Conde surrounded by soldiers. Handout via EPA)

“The duty of a soldier is to save the country,” Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, head of the army’s special forces unit, read out as he was wrapped in a Guinean flag and flanked by fellow soldiers. “The personalisation of political life is over. We will no longer entrust politics to one man, we will entrust it to the people,” Doumbouya declared, saying not only would the borders be closed for a week, but a nationwide curfew was in immediate effect until “further notice”, as well as the nullification of both government and constitution.

Doumbouya also added he, along with the military, were only acting in the best interests of the nation’s 12.7 million+ people. 

“If you see the state of our roads, if you see the state of our hospitals, you realise that after 72 years, it’s time to wake up. We have to wake up.”

(Celebrations erupt in the capitol Conakry amidst coup. Photo Courtesy of Cellou Binani/AFP.)

As many citizens celebrated the coup around the country, Guinea however, finds itself divided, with international rights bodies and nations alike condemning the violent takeover and threatening to impose sanctions should the unrest persist. 

With instability, confusion and the ever growing tensions between those that support the military takeover and those still loyal to Conde, has inevitably created a powder keg, throwing the nation into an uncertain limbo and as one Guinean journalist, Youssouf Bah, described the situation as “fluid” while speaking to Al Jazeera, he also added that Colonel Doumbouya was a “popular military officer among most of the presidential guard,” but added, “the city [Conakry] is divided. One part is supporting the coup plotters and the other part has clashes between different groups. So it’s very difficult to understand exactly what is happening.”

It remains to be seen how the decisions made by the military on Sunday will reverberate through the nation and region as well, but as instability reigns at the moment, it will be a long while yet before Guinea finds its footing once more.