Security forces during a demonstration by the Guinean opposition Front for the Defence of the Constitution. Image by Aboubacarkhoraa, taken from Wikimedia, used under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0 On December 15, 2020, Guinean President Alpha Condé was sworn in for a third term following his victory in the presidential elections held on October 18. The third term was permitted following a referendum held on March 22, 2020, at the same time as legislative elections. In power since 2010, Alpha Condé should have left the presidency in 2020, in accordance with the Guinean constitution, which allows only two consecutive terms of five years. However, even in autumn 2019, he indicated that he would seek to amend the constitution for a third term through a referendum. Since 2019, he has effectively worked toward this by manipulating the political system, not hesitating to falsify the electoral process. These significant irregularities have been denounced by international organizations and Guinean civil society, but to no effect, as he has once again managed to get reelected. During the 2018 legislative elections the International Francophone Organisation (OIF) sent two teams to Guinea to assist the electoral process. It noted serious irregularities and withdrew from the monitoring process. In a communique dated February 24, 2020, the OIF noted that, despite the observations of an audit from 2018, the electoral register still contained “2,490,664 problematic voters,” who had not renewed their registration in 2019 with the Administrative Commissions for the Establishment and Revision of Electoral Lists (CAERLE) but were still on the electoral register: Les insuffisances constatées sur ces effectifs incluent notamment un certain nombre de cas d’électeurs décédés, non déclarés ainsi que des doublons. Au total, il s’avère que 98% de ces 2.490.664 électeurs ne disposent pas de documents permettant leur identification, bien que la loi prévoit 6 types de pièces pour justifier l’identité et l’âge de l’électeur. The shortcomings identified in these lists include a number of cases of undeclared, deceased voters as well as duplicate voters. In total, it was found that 98 percent of these 2,490,664 voters do not have documents that allow them to be identified, despite the fact that the law provides for six types of documents to prove a voter's identity and age. The OIF is not the only organization to have observed irregularities: the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which is known for being sympathetic to those in power, also withdrew from the Guinean electoral process, followed by the African Union. The March 2020 referendum was also rejected in Guinea by part of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), highlighting the inadequacies of the electoral register. As two journalists from guineematin.com explained, in all the regions favorable to the ruling party, the Rally of the People of Guinea (RPG) Rainbow, the number of registered voters on the electoral register showed serious anomalies: Les concepteurs de ce Fichier ont permis à la seule population électorale de Kankan [la 2ème ville du pays] de connaître un accroissement de plus de 54% entre 2015 et 2019. Cette même progression est de 30% en moyenne pour l’ensemble du territoire. Pire, certaines communes du pays ont vu leur population électorale doubler en quatre (4) ans … Pire encore, certaines communes ont un corps électoral supérieur à leur population : Mandiana Centre (Corps électoral = 133.75% de la population), Doko (Siguiri) : 104.78%, Kouriah (Coyah : 102.07%). Those who created this register allowed the electoral population of Kankan alone [the country's second largest city] to see an increase of more than 54 percent between 2015 and 2019. There has been a similar rise of 30 percent on average across the country. Worse, some towns in the country have seen their electoral population double in four (4) years… Worse still, some towns have an electoral population greater than their actual population: Mandiana Center (Electoral population = 133.75 percent of the population), Doko (Siguiri): 104.78 percent, Kouriah (Coyah: 102.07 percent) Under pressure from street protests, Condé agreed to ask the CENI to review the electoral register before the referendum, while refusing to accede to the request from his ECOWAS colleagues not to run for a third term. The total number of registered voters was thereby reduced from 7,764,130 to 5,325,137. After this reduction, the African Union and ECOWAS eventually resumed electoral assistance to Guinea at the end of February, considering these corrections to the electoral register satisfactory.