Guinea voted on Sunday in a long-awaited referendum on a new constitution that could allow coup leader Mamady Doumbouya to run for president, despite his pledge not to seek office when he seized power in 2021.
The military-led government, which rules a nation rich in the world’s largest bauxite reserves, has already missed a self-imposed deadline of December 31, 2024, to return to civilian rule. A presidential election is now expected in December.
Opposition figures and rights groups fear the referendum marks another effort by a military regime to tighten its grip in West and Central Africa, a region rocked by eight coups between 2020 and 2023. Officials, however, portray the vote as a step toward elections and a democratic transition.
Doumbouya has not said whether he will run. A transition charter adopted after the 2021 coup bars members of the ruling junta from standing in the next election.
The referendum is widely expected to pass, as the country’s two main opposition leaders—Cellou Dalein Diallo and ousted former president Alpha Condé—have called for a boycott. Their parties remain suspended, and Human Rights Watch has accused the government of disappearing political opponents and arbitrarily closing media outlets.
Authorities deny any involvement in disappearances but have promised to investigate the allegations.
