U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for West Africa

Tel: +225 22-40-4440
Fax: +225 22-41-9339
e-mail: irin-wa@irin.ci


WEST AFRICA
IRIN-WA Weekly Round-Up 300
15 - 21 October 2005


CONTENTS:

LIBERIA: "King George" squares up for election run-off with "Iron Lady"
SENEGAL: Authorities close radios, detain staff over interview of
   separatist leader
CHAD: Aid groups reduce staff in east after troop desertions
GUINEA: Pivotal municipal elections set for December
BURKINA FASO: Compaore gets green light to run for third mandate


LIBERIA: "King George" squares up for election run-off with "Iron Lady"

Soccer legend George Weah looks set to go head-to-head with former 
finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in a run-off to decide who will 
be the next president of war-battered Liberia, according to preliminary 
results.

With returns in from 95 percent of polling stations across the heavily 
forested country, Weah was in the lead with 28.8 percent of the votes 
and Sirleaf was in second with 20.0 percent.

A candidate must get 50 percent plus one vote to be declared the winner 
of Liberia's first presidential elections since the end of a 14-year 
civil war.

"Looking at the numbers above... the NEC sees it prudent to begin 
preparations for a presidential election run-off," Frances 
Johnson-Morris, the head of the National Elections Commission, told 
reporters.

"The run-off election will be held on November 8," she added.

Full report
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49604


SENEGAL: Authorities close radios, detain staff over interview of 
separatist leader http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49610

Senegal's leading private radio was closed down for nearly an entire day 
under special instructions from the Interior Ministry after the station 
interviewed a leader of a two-decade separatist rebellion in the 
southern Casamance region of the country.

Employees from the main station in the capital, Dakar, and five other 
relay stations across the country were brought in for questioning after 
authorities stopped all Sud FM transmissions for 10 hours and seized the 
media's daily "Sud Quotidien."

Police arrived at Sud FM stations across the nation within minutes of 
the morning airing of an interview with Salif Sadio, leader of the armed 
wing of the secessionist Democratic Forces Movement of Casamance (MFDC).

"The police arrived at around 9 o'clock and demanded we stop all 
transmissions," said Seydou Nourou Gaye, head of Sud FM's relay station 
in Ziguinchor, Casamance's main city.

Gaye said the head of Sud FM's Ziguinchor bureau, Ibrahima Gassama, who 
carried out the interview, had been detained for questioning.

In Dakar, Oumar Diouf Fall, who heads the Sud FM station in the capital, 
said he had had no official notification, written or verbal, to explain 
the government's response. "The chief commissioner of police here in 
Dakar will not answer my questions," he told IRIN. "Even the drivers and 
the cleaners were arrested," he said.

Full report
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49610


CHAD: Aid groups reduce staff in east after troop desertions

Humanitarian organisations have decided to pull some non-essential staff 
from parts of eastern Chad, where the government says it has 
"surrounded" dissident soldiers and the situation is calm and under 
control.

The government has said that at least 40 Chadian soldiers have deserted 
their posts in the capital, N'djamena, and fled to the volatile east of 
the country, where the United Nations and aid organisations are 
assisting some 200,000 refugees from Sudan.

In a statement, the Chadian government insisted that the stability of 
the region was not in jeopardy. "The Chadian government thanks [its 
friends and neighbours] who have expressed concern about the situation 
in the east," it said. "However the government would like to reassure 
them that the situation is under control and moreover represents no 
threat whatsoever to peace and stability in Chad, much less the 
sub-region."

Eastern Chad abuts Sudan's war-wracked Darfur region, where conflict has 
repeatedly spilled into Chadian towns, and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of 
neighbouring Libya recently expressed worry about the defections and a 
potential threat to regional stability.

Full report 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49609


GUINEA: Pivotal municipal elections set for December

Guinea's government has announced that municipal elections, widely seen 
as a barometer of the country's democratic future, will be held on 18 
December but the opposition has yet to announce whether it will be on 
board.

"We'll make a decision at the end of the week as to whether or not we'll 
take part in December's municipal elections," Jean-Marie Dore, one of 
the leaders of the opposition coalition Republican Front for Democratic 
Change (FRAD), told IRIN following a presidential decree on the matter.

Facing pressure from the international community, Guinea has undertaken 
a program of political reforms needed to restart the flow of foreign 
aid, much of which has been frozen due to concerns over governance and 
human rights.

Analysts view the upcoming vote as a practical test of these reforms and 
a dry run for a peaceful transition should ailing President Lansana 
Conte, who took power in a 1984 coup, be unable to serve to the end of 
his term in 2010.

A report released in June by the international think-tank Crisis Group 
highlighted the importance of the municipal elections for a country it 
said was on the verge of becoming West Africa's next failed state. "They 
will largely determine the quality of Guinean democracy," the report 
says. "If they fail, the presidential succession will likely be 
disastrous."

Full report
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49668


BURKINA FASO: Compaore gets green light to run for third mandate

Burkina Faso's Constitutional Court has thrown out a bid by opposition 
leaders to stop President Blaise Compaore running for a third term in 
elections scheduled for next month.

Five opposition candidates in the 13 November poll had appealed to the 
court to declare Compaore's bid for re-election null and void on the 
basis of Article 37 of the constitution, which sets a two-term ceiling 
on the office of president.

In 1997, the clause was amended by a stacked parliament, which lifted 
the ceiling to enable heads of state to remain in office for life. But 
in 2000 parliament re-introduced the two-term limit and reduced the 
presidential term from seven to five years in office.

The constitutional court has ruled, as Compaore was already in office in 
2000, the two-term limit can only apply to the outgoing president from 
the end of his present mandate in November.

Full report
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=49602


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 
2005


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