GUINEA

President Alpha Condé won a controversial third term in late 2020 in disputed elections that were marred by violence. The president’s insistence to stay in office beyond his second term has polarised the nation, threatening the country’s political stability. The opposition will never accept Condé’s third term as legitimate and is set to continue a civil disobedience campaign into 2021. Frequent political protests have also the tendency of reigniting simmering socio-economic and ethnic tensions, especially in mining towns. President Condé’s immediate post-election priority will be reviving the economy following the country’s economic downturn because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the incessant outbreaks of violence in the lead-up to those elections. The pandemic and subdued demand for Guinea’s exports have left the economy vulnerable.

• The 2020 elections and referendum triggered criticism from France, the EU, and US. Russia and China are the few foreign countries that have supported Condé’s third term bid as their investments in Guinea have grown considerably. The government relies heavily on the mining sector and will be concentrating its efforts in getting the Simandou iron ore mining project off the ground. While the opposition remains divided, the ruling RPG party has expelled former dissidents and opponents of the president’s third term bid following the March elections when it secured an absolute parliamentary majority. Condé has surrounded himself with former allies of late President Lansana Conté, who also remained in office beyond his initial constitutional mandate.
• The risk of protests and riots is heightened as opposition parties seek to frustrate the president’s power extension. The 2020 elections themselves were peaceful with a good turnout reported, but Guinea has a history of peaceful elections bookended by bouts of serious violence. Guinea’s FNDC opposition alliance will maintain pressure on Condé by holding public protests in their bid to make the country ungovernable. Condé will, however, continue his crackdown on FNDC leaders and supporters using the security forces to contain public protests as he has been doing successfully for the better part of his second term in office. Frequent political protests have also the tendency of reigniting simmering socio-economic and ethnic tensions, especially in mining towns.
• The Guinean mining sector had been undergoing a remarkable trajectory before the pandemic, particularly in gold and bauxite mining. The economy is set to grow by just 1.4 percent in 2020, but recovering quickly in 2021 on the back of mining exports. The economic boom had been driven by bauxite exports, of which the Chinese-Singaporean-Guinean consortium Société minière de Boké-Winning (SMB-Winning) is now Guinea’s largest exporter. Both Russian and Chinese companies dominate the bauxite sector and its limited refinery capacity. Chinese companies are also extending their interest in the iron ore sector. The government will now push for the development of Simandou, which is an important and strategic project to Guinea; once it is fully operational, it is estimated to produce 7 percent of annual global iron ore output for a 30 year-period.