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Guinea’s Conde Says Third Term Should be Allowable as Vote Nears

Guinea’s Conde Says Third Term Should be Allowable as Vote Nears

(Bloomberg) -- Guinean President Alpha Conde said it should be permissible to stand as country leader for a third term as the nation prepares for a referendum that will allow him to extend his 10-year rule.

The West African country will vote Sunday on a new constitution that would extend presidential mandates from five to six years, with a two-term limit, and it’s expected that Conde, 81, will use this change to seek re-election later this year.

Guinea’s Conde Says Third Term Should be Allowable as Vote Nears

Voters will cast their ballots on Sunday to decide on the proposal alongside a parliamentary election in polls that will be boycotted by opposition parties.

“The Guinean people will ask themselves, is this the first time that a president has changed the constitution to do a third or fourth mandate?” Conde said in an interview with French daily Le Figaro. “Why wouldn’t it be possible to do three terms in Guinea?”

The West African nation has a history of authoritarian rule. Its first two presidents, Sekou Toure and Lansana Conte, died in office after clinging respectively 26 and 24 years to power. At Conte’s death in 2008, military junta leader Dadis Camara ruled for a year until he was incapacitated by an assassination attempt.

Conde has so far avoided to confirm his own intentions and again told Le Figaro that he wasn’t “thinking” about October’s presidential elections.

“I’m a statesman, not a politician,” he said. “The presidential election is still far away.”

While Guinea is the world’s biggest supplier of bauxite to China, it remains one of the least developed countries with gross domestic product of less than $1,000 per capita. The European Union and the U.S. have urged Conde to respect the current term limits, while the Organisation internationale de la Francophone, which had been due to monitor Sunday’s vote, suspended its participation.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katarina Hoije in Abidjan at khoije@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Janse van Vuuren at ajansevanvuu@bloomberg.net, Yinka Ibukun

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