Guinea , 5 November 2025 - Guinea’s military ruler, General Mamadi Doumbouya, has officially declared that he will run for president in the December 2025 elections, four years after he seized power through a coup that toppled President Alpha Condé. The announcement came on Monday, when Gen. Doumbouya submitted his candidacy papers to the country’s electoral commission, breaking a promise he made in 2021 not to contest the vote once a civilian government was restored.
When he led the coup, Doumbouya, then head of the elite Special Forces, justified the takeover as a response to corruption, bad governance, and Condé’s controversial bid for a third term. He pledged to oversee a transition and hand power back to civilians. But as in several other West African nations that have recently fallen under military rule, including Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, that promise has faded.
A Familiar Pattern in Francophone Africa
Analysts say Doumbouya’s move follows a worrying pattern in Francophone Africa, where military leaders often seize power with public approval, only to later entrench themselves. The Guinean leader’s decision mirrors similar transitions that stalled in other coup-hit nations, casting doubt on the credibility of the promised return to democracy.
The situation in Guinea also echoes the words of a report in the South African Journal of Cultural History, which notes that coups in the region are often justified as corrective, but quickly become mechanisms for maintaining power under a new face.
Exclusion of Opposition Parties Raises Questions
Concerns about fairness in the upcoming election have deepened after two of the country’s largest political movements, the RPG Arc-en-Ciel, the party of former president Condé, and the UFDG, led by long-time opposition figure Cellou Dalein Diallo, were barred from participating. The transitional government cited “legal and administrative reasons,” but critics see it as a deliberate attempt to silence key challengers.
Human rights groups and local civil society organisations warn that such exclusions could undermine public confidence in the vote and trigger unrest. The think tank Democracy in Africa notes that Guinea’s history of transitional justice and reconciliation has often been marked by “unfulfilled promises and selective accountability.”
A Test for Guinea’s Democratic Future
For many Guineans, Doumbouya’s candidacy confirms what they feared, that the military transition was never meant to end quickly. While some supporters view him as a strong leader who restored order, others say his decision betrays the spirit of the 2021 coup. Guinea heads toward December’s polls, and the question remains whether the country will truly move toward democracy, or whether, like many of its neighbours, it will remain trapped in a cycle where power changes hands, but never truly leaves the barracks.
