Guinea: Background and Relations with the United States
February 22, 2011 - R40703
The past two years have seen a series of dramatic changes in Guinea's political landscape, a new experience for a country that had only two presidents in the first 50 years after independence in 1958. In June 2010, Guineans voted in their country's first presidential election organized by an independent electoral commission and without an incumbent candidate. Longtime exiled opposition leader Alpha Condé, who had previously never served in government, was declared the winner after a much-delayed run-off poll in November. Condé's inauguration in December 2010 brought an end to two years of military rule and, many hope, to over 50 years of authoritarianism. Many Guineans, investors, and foreign diplomats also expect the election to provide a stepping-stone toward reforming state institutions and implementing the rule of law, which are considered prerequisites for private sector growth and increased respect for human rights. At the same time, ethnic violence and reported abuses by security forces, both before and after the run-off vote, point to underlying problems within Guinea's security sector and exposed socio-political divides that may prove challenging for the new administration to overcome. A former French colony on West Africa's Atlantic coast, with a population of about 10 million, Guinea ...