Guinea Opposition Boycott Count of Disputed Poll
Guinea's main opposition parties on Thursday withdrew representatives overseeing the counting of votes in a legislative election they have said was riddled with fraud, calling the process a "joke".
"We have asked our representatives at the national commission of vote centralization to withdraw," former prime minister and opposition coalition spokesman Sidya Toure told Agence France Presse.
The opposition coalition on Thursday warned President Alpha Conde's Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) against any vote "tampering" as results trickled in five days after the election.
It has already strongly rejected certain results handing the RPG victory in the troubled west African nation's first legislative election since 2002.
The September 28 election took place after numerous delays and was preceded by violent protests as the opposition accused Conde of conniving to rig the vote.
Guinea's electoral commission said on Tuesday it would not consider the accusations of electoral fraud until vote counting was finished.
"How can we participate when we aren't even allowed to defend our theories, when we are forbidden from speaking. This is a joke and we think it's a casus belli (an act justifying war)," Toure said.
Conde became Guinea's first democratically elected president in 2010 in an election marred by delays and violent ethnic clashes. The country has since remained crippled by political deadlock.
Source: Agence France Presse
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