Guinea to hold first election

CONAKRY – The powerful leader of Guinea’s military junta vowed to ensure this West African nation’s first-ever free election yesterday was fair and transparent, warning a roomful of presidential hopefuls they must help avert violence or risk casting the nation back to its volatile past.

‘We can no longer continue to live like we are in a jungle, as if we are in a state without authority,’ General Sekouba Konate told 24 candidates gathered on couches in the presidential palace on the eve of the vote. ‘Too many Guineans have perished and suffered.’’Starting from now, it’s up to you to make it happen,’ he said late on Saturday. The choice, he added, is between ‘peace, freedom and democracy, or disorder and instability.’Konate, along with all members of his junta and a transitional governing council comprised of civilians are barred from running in the vote, which many hope will go down in history as the nation’s first truly democratic poll since independence from France in 1958.The ballot also marks a spectacular turnaround for a country that just months ago was full of despair, terrorised by an army that rampaged through the capital with impunity – courtesy of Moussa ‘Dadis’ Camara, an erratic army captain who seized power in a December 2008 coup hours after the nation’s previous despot passed away. – Nampa- AP