After 52 years of dictatorial rule with occasional elections deemed by most as pure theatre to keep the military ruler in power, Guineans will select from 24 civilian candidates, with no incumbent on the ballot.

The capital Conakry is plastered with candidates’ billboards and banners calling for transparency and stability. Night-time silhouettes of people crowded into pick-ups could be mistaken for armed soldiers, long a fixture in the streets, but on closer inspection one sees they are youths demonstrating for their favourite political leaders.

“One cannot even qualify how much is at stake,” Thierno Baldé, head of a youth association, told IRIN on 21 June, just back from a civil society-sponsored nationwide tour to talk with youths about preventing election violence. “This will be the first time ever Guinea will have a leader chosen by the people.”

After extensive involvement and financial support by the international community Guineans and Guinea watchers are hopeful. It is the first time since military ruler Lansana Conté took power in a 1984 coup – after the death of Ahmed Sékou Touré – that elected civilian rule is within reach.

But given the country’s lack of a democratic tradition, long-time indiscipline in the military, and politics steeped in ethnic divisions, researchers and election experts say the bar is relatively low. Many hope the country can simply pull off a peaceful poll in which contenders will accept the results. A second round, if necessary, would be held on 18 July.

Already there have been violent clashes between political party militants. A distraught youth at a 23 June Cellou Dalein Diallo rally in Conakry shouted about how he and family members were attacked in a nearby town by supporters of Sidya Touré. Candidates, civil society leaders and diplomats have repeatedly called for calm.

Among the encouraging steps, according to Elizabeth Côté, Guinea head of the US-based NGO International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), is a voter registry accepted by all candidates and national administration showing itself to be neutral.

“Generally conditions are good,” said Côté, who has been in Guinea for years working on election issues and civil-military relations. “The biggest issue remains logistics… But there is such a strong will on the part of all actors to make this succeed that people should manage to get past [any glitches].” She noted that there are more than 1,000 international and national observers throughout the country.

Mathieu Bile Bouah, UN elections consultant who has been in Guinea since 2007, said logistical problems will be only as significant as people want to make them. “Everyone involved – from the government to the candidates to the citizens – must demonstrate the will to make this work.”

Moving past military

Observers say in the end this election, which they say will inevitably have its flaws, is about moving beyond military rule in Guinea.

“First and foremost this election must be seen as the step that gets the army out of power,” said Mamady Kaba, head of the pan-African human rights group RADDHO in Guinea.

“In subsequent elections we can hope for a better, freer, more credible process. For now the essential thing is that all candidates commit to having one victor – the Guinean people.”

“Most neutral individuals will probably say these elections were as good as we’re going to get in the circumstances,” Richard Moncrieff, head of International Crisis Group’s West Africa programme, told IRIN. “We must get out of the state of exception and move on.”

He said flaws could lead to contestations by anyone who does not want to accept the outcome. “But I’m relatively optimistic… that people who contest it will be marginalized in the same way as those who tried to delay it have been in the past six months.”

Konaté’s role

Interim military ruler Sékouba Konaté, who took over after Moussa Dadis Camara left Guinea following an assassination attempt in December, has been praised by Guineans and the international community for moving swiftly towards elections and sticking to his vow neither to run nor to endorse a candidate.

Konaté, a long-time army general, has also been able to transform the face of the military.

“He has broken up the Dadis structure more boldly than I thought he would,” Moncrieff said. “Konaté has worked to reinstate hierarchical command, whereas Dadis was about turning it on its head.”

Why has Konaté been able to effect such a turnaround? “There was the shock of 28 September, which I think a lot of soldiers were appalled by,” he said. “Then there was the shooting of the president, which was a sort of watershed as well.”

He said Konaté is one of the people in the Guinean military who knows well the history of Liberia and Sierra Leone. “I think he made a calculation – yes, I profit from disorder but on the other hand if this country really tips over the edge most people lose.”

The longer term political role of the military is less certain, observers say.

“There is the more general question of discipline and order in the army,” said Moncrieff. “The durability of that is more difficult to measure.”

For now Guineans say Konaté’s influence has translated into a change in daily life. For years seen as the people’s enemy instead of protector, with daily harassment and frequent crackdowns in which civilians have died at the hands of soldiers, the army has drastically reduced its presence in the streets.

“We go one, two, three weeks without hearing a gunshot,” said a local journalist who preferred anonymity. “We sleep in peace now.”

Will people sleep in peace after the elections?

“We will see,” he said. “We cannot say for now.”

It remains to be seen, observers say, whether soldiers will remain in their barracks throughout the elections but signs are promising.

IFES’s Côté said Konaté can most likely continue to keep the military in check during the elections, but stability will depend on the behaviour of everyone involved.Anything can happen and there could be a domino effect if [unrest breaks out]. In this case the army might be stuck in a position where they have to act.” In the past the Guinean army’s response to public demonstrations and civil strife has been brutal suppression.

She said if results are contested and things turn bad, this would give credence to those who have warned against accepting an election, any election, in order to put a stamp of “successful transition” so the international community can re-engage in the country.

Major donors like the United States, France and the European Union have suspended many aid programmes since the December 2008 coup or the September 2009 violent military crackdown.

Ethnicity

Guinea’s ethnic makeup is Peulh (a majority at about 40 percent), Malinké, Soussou, and several smaller groups from the Forest Region including the Guerzé. From independence in 1958 to the 2008 coup that brought Guerzé Camara to power, the country had two presidents – one Malinké and one Soussou.

Guineans told IRIN ethnicity weighs heavily in people’s candidate selection.

“People tend to act ‘ethnically’, if you will, not socially,” the local journalist told IRIN. “We must educate people to vote not based on ethnicity but on a candidate’s programme for the country.”

Crisis Group’s Moncrieff said ethnic tensions persist but “that’s not where things are playing out at the moment”; he said ethnic strife is likely to be more of a problem in upcoming legislative elections.

President but no parliament

Legislative elections have been planned and cancelled several times in the past few years and the lack of a legitimate government will be an important factor as a civilian leader takes power, Moncrieff said.

It could either reinforce centralization of power – “with the president just picking up a pen and doing what he wishes by decree”, a problem across West Africa, he said – or the new leader’s position could be weakened because people could say the constitutional transition has not been completed.

Another Toxic Waste Vessel Arrested in Lagos

FEW weeks after the controversial vessel, MV Maersk Nashville, allegedly carrying a container laden with toxic materials was intercepted in Lagos, another vessel, M.V. Gumel was, yesterday, detained for bringing into the country, eight containers laden with materials suspected to be toxic.

The ship which berthed at the Tin-can Port, was detained on the orders of officials of the National Environmental Standards Regulations Enforcement Agency, NESREA.

Officials of NESREA, Nigerian Ports Authority, NPA, and Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, were inspecting the six 40 footer and two 20 footer containers on board the ship when Vanguard visited the port.

Head of NESREA at the port, Mrs. Miranda Amachree, told Vanguard that they got intelligence report from their counterpart in Antwerp that the vessel was bringing used fridges, used television sets, compressor pots and used batteries.

Amachree explained that the report from Antwerp was a result of the agreement entered into by Nigeria and other nationals to do away with Chloro fluoro carbon, CFC, which were brought in by the vessel.

She said Nigeria was a signatory to Basil Convention which sought to eliminate the use of CFC because of its effect on the ozone layer.

M.V Gumel the ship suspected to be carrying Toxic waste at the Tincan Island Port Lagos.

Amachree said: "CFC is no longer in use in Europe and what they do is that some of them connive with Nigerians to send them here."

She said that the Nigerian Navy would have stopped the vessel from coming into the country since it had the Automated Information System, AIS, but that they did not seem to have the information on time.

A source in Abuja told Vanguard that 41 containers came from Antwerp but officials in that country intercepted 33 while the other eight got away.

Public Relations Officer of the Tin-Can Island Command of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Christian Osunkwo, who earlier spoke with Vanguard said that Customs got advance notice of the arrival of the vessel since May 21 and that the vessel was watched by Customs officials until the allegation of toxic materials in the containers were confirmed.

Gas leakage

Meantime, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency, NESREA, has reassured residents of Kaduna and Nigerians that the gas leakage which occurred on 29 May, in which over 300 people were hospitalized was a result of their inhaling the gas that was under control.

A statement from the agency said: "Soon after the leakage was noticed the Agency dispatched a high powered team of officers to the scene of incident at the Scrap Iron Market, DICON Road, Kakuri Industrial Area, Kaduna South, Kaduna State.

Togo finally towards reconciliation

The announcement that Togo's "eternal opposition leader" Gilchrist Olympio and his UFC party will join government may end decades of political strife and violence in the West African country.

Togo's main opposition party, the Union of Forces for Change (UFC), will for the first time join government, opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio told a press conference yesterday in the capital Lomé. Mr Olympio said that the deal would give his party seven ministerial posts, which are expected to be announced today.

Togo's Prime Minister Gilbert Houngbo confirmed the deal, according to a statement published by the Togolese government, which refers to it as "a historic agreement". President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé had participated in the government negotiations and approved the result.

This marks the first time that the UFC will play a formal role in government since Togo's democratic process slowly started in 1990. Togo has been dominated by the Gnassingbé family since the 1970s, first as a fierce dictatorship, later under pressure from the European Union in a slow democratisation process.

Mr Olympio has been the main opposition figure in Togo for decades and is the son of former President Sylvanus Olympio, who was assassinated in a 1963 coup. Since that, a power struggle in Togo has been fought between the Gnassingbé and Olympio families, with their respective power bases in the north and the south of the small country.

Since the 1993 multi-candidate presidential elections, Mr Olympio has been the legalised opposition's main leader and mostly also its main presidential candidate. Most elections, however, turned out to be strongly manipulated in favour of the Gnassingbé clan, many ending up in bloody riots and large-scale attacks on UFC supporters.

In the 2010 presidential polls, however, Mr Olympio stating health reasons left Jean-Pierre Fabre to stand as the UFC candidate although he remains party leader. Mr Olympio during the last months has been accused of collaborating with President Gnassingbé's ruling Rally of the Togolese People (RPT) party, or even receiving money from the RPT.

While the participation of Mr Olympio and several UFC colleagues in the Togolese government is seen as a major step forward towards reconciliation, his decision could lead to a split within the UFC party. The party's presidential candidate, Mr Fabre, today protested the decision, calling it "a solitary march by Mr Olympio" that did not have the backing of the party.

Mr Fabre, after losing the election, had united with the more radical opposition coalition FRAC in organising protest marches and claiming the official election results were manipulated. Already during these marches, which threatened to throw Togo into renewed political violence, the UFC was split between hardliners and voices promoting reconciliation.

A power struggle between Mr Olympio's and Mr Fabre's factions within the UFC is therefore already developing. Togolese media speak about a "divorce" between Mr Olympio and his former protégé. Mr Fabre claims the party leadership is behind him in rejecting a UFC participation in government, while Mr Olympio, still the party leader, says he is "the main responsible of my party," entrusted to make decisions over government participation.

For the Togolese, nevertheless, a reconciliation between the Olympio and Gnassingbé clans is good news, also meaning that the southern region of the country is better represented in government. But for the UFC, a split may seem impossible to avoid, lessening the chances of the opposition to win future elections.

Senegal slowly moving out of recession

Senegal, which has been hit hard by internal bottlenecks and the global crisis, may see a slow recovery of its economy already this year. But growth is still uncertain.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which agreed to a US$ 47.7 million disbursement to continue to fund Senegal's anti-poverty programme today, growth perspectives in the West African country are still fragile.

IMF analyst Murilo Portugal concluded that a full recovery of the Senegalese economy was still not in sight. "Following food and fuel price shocks in 2008, economic activity slowed further in 2009 because of the global economic downturn and domestic shocks, including temporary electricity shortages," Mr Portugal noted.

Indeed, the two last years saw an economic growth averaging about 2 percent. This is well below Senegal's population growth, meaning that per capita income declined in 2008 and 2009, thus leading to more poverty in the country.

For 2010, projections are still unsure, Mr Portugal noted. "While some uncertainties about the economic outlook persist, recent indicators suggest that economic growth may have bottomed out. Growth is projected to gradually recover," the IMF analyst held.

While numbers are uncertain, the IMF and Senegalese authorities have forecast a GDP growth of around 3.5 percent for this year, meaning that the population will see real but very slow growth.

Among the greater insecurities of this outlook is the still fragile energy supply in Senegal. Temporary electricity shortages are still a major problem, which could get worse before it gets better. This could jeopardise the modest growth predicted for this year.

Another main uncertainty is the development of the global market, where a threatening new finance crisis would hit also Senegal's fragile growth. Also renewed external shocks as high fuel prices would make Senegalese growth very vulnerable.

While the IMF at this point approved a major disbursement for Senegal, the Fund made it clear that the Dakar government is too ineffective in carrying out needed structural reforms. Government was especially urged to finally "fully normalise relations with the private sector," where tax issues among others remain unsolved.

Also, the Fund expressed its scepticism towards how the Senegalese government chooses its investment projects, which are often called extravagant and channelled to prestigious projects. "Investment projects should be selected and prioritised based on rigorous economic cost-benefit analysis to raise the productivity of government spending," Mr Portugal emphasised.

Migrants interned in Niger's desert

On their way to Europe, many migrants from West and Central Africa are caught trying to cross the border from Niger to Algeria or Libya. Niger is now interning migrants in desert camps, preparing their return.

The network to stop illegal African migrants from reaching the European Union (EU) is steadily expanding. First, the EU reached agreements with North African transit countries such as Morocco and Libya to return migrants before trying to reach Europe. Now, even countries in the Sahara and Sahel are cooperating with the EU.

In the middle of the Sahara desert, around the major Nigerien Sahara trade route town Agadez, EU funding has achieved the establishment of two so-called "transit centres" to interne the increasing number of illegal migrants that now are caught by security forces of Niger, Algeria and Libya.

The centres, funded by the Italian government, "provide often desperate and destitute migrants with temporary lodging, food, clothing items and hygiene kits as well as basic health care services as well as counselling on the dangers of irregular migration," according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which assists in the operation of the centres.

The two centres are located in the northern Niger region of Agadez, in the districts of Dirkou and Arlit. Since the opening of the centres in November 2009 for Dirkou and January 2010 for Arlit, IOM and its local partners have registered a total of 1,446 migrants.

Over the past years, migrants have used numerous land routes to try and reach their desired destinations in North Africa and Europe, the Niger route through the Sahara desert being among the most popular.

The trans-Saharan journey is generally made in several stages, and might take anywhere between one month and several years. On their way, migrants often settle temporarily in towns located on migration hubs to work and save enough money for their onward journeys, usually in large trucks or pick-ups.

Although a variety of trans-Saharan routes exists, the majority of overland migrants enter the Maghreb from Agadez, which is located on a historical crossroads of trade routes that extend deep into West and Central Africa.

From Agadez, migration routes bifurcate to the Sebha oasis in Libya and to Tamanrasset in southern Algeria. From southern Libya, migrants move to Tripoli and other coastal cities in Libya or to Tunisia.

From Tamanrasset in Algeria, some migrants move to the northern cities or enter Morocco via the border near Oujda. From Oujda in Morocco, migrants either try to enter the EU by crossing the sea from the north coast or entering the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta or Melilla or move to Rabat and Casablanca, where they settle down at least temporarily.

The aim of the Agadez interning centre is to intercept illegal migrants already before they make the hazardous journey through the Sahara desert and before their return from North Africa becomes too costly and bureaucratic.

According to IOM, the early abruption in Niger also has a humanitarian aspect. The migration organisation primarily is involved in works to ease the heavy plight of the migrants. In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the IOM's main task however is to convince the stranded migrants they will be best off returning voluntarily.

Voluntary return and reintegration assistance is provided. To ease reintegration, IOM says it is developing in cooperation with local training and financial institutions micro-enterprise and income generating opportunities for more than 300 vulnerable Nigerien returnees, which include in-kind assistance and business management tutoring.

The two centres in Agadez are among the first to be planned in the Sahel region. In addition, the EU has wide-reaching agreements with most source countries of illegal migrants, including Mali, Senegal and The Gambia, to provide for forced return of migrants that have already reached Europe.