Mamadi Doumbouya has officially filed for elections on December 28, with the aim of restoring constitutional order after the 2021 coup.
Published November 3, 2025
Mamadi Doumbouya, leader of Guinea’s military junta, has officially announced his candidacy for the presidential election on December 28, with the aim of restoring constitutional order after the general’s coup in 2021.
Doumbouya arrived at West Africa’s highest court in an armored vehicle on Monday to formally deliver his candidacy, surrounded by special forces. He left without making a statement.
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Thousands of supporters, who had traveled by bus to the capital Conakry, gathered outside the court and chanted “Mamadi’s defender, Mamadi’s president, Mamadi is already elected!”
Doumbouya, 40, had promised not to run when he took power in 2021. But a new constitution promoted by the military government and approved in a referendum in September opened the door for his candidacy.
The new charter replaces a deal reached after the coup that barred members of the military junta from participating in elections. Presidential candidates must also reside in Guinea and be between the ages of 40 and 80.
The move would preclude the candidacy of two potentially strong candidates: former President Alpha Conde, 87, who is the first expatriate to be elected in a free election, and Cherou Dallaine Diallo, 73, a former prime minister in exile amid corruption allegations, which he denies.
Other candidates, including former Prime Minister Lansana Kouyate and former Foreign Minister Hajah Makale Camara, have also submitted applications and may run.
In a statement on Monday, the opposition Federation of the Survivors of Guinea (FVG) denounced Doumbouya’s candidacy as a “disastrous turning point in our country’s history” and accused him of trampling his “solemn promise” not to run for president.
Guinea, an impoverished former French colony with 14.5 million people, has long been ravaged by coups and violence from hardline governments.
However, after Conde’s election in November 2010, it went through a period of democratic transition until it was overthrown by Doumbouya in September 2021.
Doumbouya has severely restricted freedoms since taking power.
The junta banned demonstrations and arrested, prosecuted, or expelled several opposition leaders, some of whom were victims of enforced disappearances.
Several media outlets were also suspended and journalists arrested.
Guinea became the second country in sub-Saharan Africa after Ghana to become independent in 1958, before the wave of decolonization in the 1960s. It is home to the world’s largest bauxite reserves and the world’s richest undeveloped iron ore deposit at Simandou.
