Leadership (Abuja)
Golu Timothy
30 December 2008
Abuja — The Economic Community of West African states, ECOWAS has rejected the two-year deadline set by the military leaders of Guinea for a new election saying that the period was too long and unacceptable to the ECOWAS leaders.
Speaking with State House correspondents after briefing the chairman of ECOWAS, President Umaru Yar'Adua on the situation in the country, the Secretary general of ECOWAS, Mohammed Ibn Chambas said for as long as the military remains in power, the leaders would not be recognised by the sub-regional body.
"It is certainly not acceptable. A two-year transitional period is too long; it can be done quicker because they were in the process of preparations towards legislative elections, which should have held on May 31, 2009. The last Summit of ECOWAS right here in Abuja on the 19th of December was informed by the then Prime Minister that elections were possible in Guinea on the 31st of May 2009" Mr Chambas emphasised.
According to the ECOWAS scribe, 'the position of the Chairman of ECOWAS, President Yar'adua is very clear, ECOWAS has a policy of zero tolerance for coup de'tat and so does the African Union, we work in tandem with the AU and in that, we made it very clear to the government the CNDD in Guinea, that as long as there is a military face to the transition it will be difficult for the ECOWAS to work with the government.
He added however that the body was 'willing to find a way in which it can facilitate the establishment of a civilian transition to democracy in Guinea because Democracy has to be built by the people and no single group or segment of the society can take it upon itself to impose democratic transition and that is why it's crucial that ECOWAS remains engaged with Guinea, the people of Guinea, the CNDD to ensure that we bring about short transition and a transition in which the entire stakeholders in Guinea, political parties, civil society, unions and all can be a part of this transition which will now give Guinea an opportunity to join the rest of West Africa on the part of building democratic governance.
He said the ECOWAS delegation despatched to Guinea 'found that the country was calm and there has been no violence and we have to commend the security forces of that country for keeping the peace and security and we encourage them to continue to do that so that the people of Guinea do not suffer as we have seen in the past.
Despite the relative peace, Ibn Chambas said, 'the task now is to involved all the Guinean people particularly, civil society, political parties and unions in a transition which I must emphasis should be short, go towards holding elections, credible, transparent, free and fair elections and if Guineans did that I think they will have the support of not only ECOWAS but that of the AU and the international community'.
He said the delegation found a ' flexibility on their part, we found a willingness to work with ECOWAS that is a good beginning and we will follow it up.
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Dude, why do you assume that 'African' states should be "democratic?"
Unless you want us to treat your cris de couer as a pure PREJUDICE, we demand a founded defense of your assumption, otherwise we shall be constrained to view it as a dogmatic ideological posit.
Now, go to work: produce the theoretical foundation of your bullet from a pistol assertion.
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ECOWAS and AU should stand their ground and not let the backward forces represented by the coup makers "succeed." Africa is not as helpless as some people seem to think, so that it has to be ruled by renegade roque elements.
Don't betray the Guineans the same way that South Africa's Mbeki betrayed the Zimbabweans.
Wade of Senegal is, as usual, out of step by suggesting the world should let the coup makers free reign. We all remember Wade's unsolicited attempts at placating Mugabe after Mugabe stole elections turned into exercise in futility.
How can Ghana, fellow a ECOWAS member, hold free and fair elections and Guinea cannot ?
It is high time democratic Africa stood up and did the right thing by rejecting, disown and dishonor political thuggery.
We know there are some world opportunists on the ready to cash in (the mineral wealth), but the rogue regime must be isolated unless the allow Guinea to revert to a democratic dispensation. Guinea has a wretched history as but that is no reason to continue to wallow in the same idiocy.
Africa is beginning to have a critical mass of democratic states to tip the scale in favor of a democratic order continent wide.