Mamadi Dumbouya formally files papers for the December 28 election aimed at restoring constitutional order after a 2021 coup.
Published on November 3, 2025
The leader of Guinea’s military government, Mamadi Dumbouia, has officially entered the presidential race, submitting his candidacy for the December 28 election aimed at restoring constitutional order after a 2021 coup.
Dumbouya arrived in an armored vehicle at the West African country’s Supreme Court on Monday to formally hand over his candidacy surrounded by special forces. They left without giving a statement.
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Thousands of his supporters, traveling by bus to the capital Conakry, gathered outside the court and chanted: “Mamadi champion, Mamadi president, Mamadi is already elected!”
Dumbouya, 40, had vowed not to run when he took power in 2021. But the military government pushed through and ratified the new constitution. Referendum in September The door of his candidacy opened.
The new charter was changed after a coup that barred members of the military government from contesting elections. This requires presidential candidates to reside in Guinea and be between 40 and 80 years old.
It would bar two potentially powerful candidates – former president Alfa Conde, 87, the country’s first freely elected president, who lives abroad, and former prime minister Selu Delein Diallo, 73, who is in exile over corruption charges he denies.
Other candidates, including former prime minister Lansana Kouyate and former foreign minister Hadja Makale Camara, have submitted their applications and could stand.
In a statement on Monday, the opposition Living Forces of Guinea (FVG) coalition condemned Doumbouya’s candidacy as “a disastrous turn in the history of our country” and accused him of trampling on his “serious commitment” not to run for president.
Impoverished Guinea, a former French colony home to 14.5 million people, has long been plagued by rebellions and violence from hardline governments.
However, after the November 2010 election of Condé, Dumbouya experienced a period of democratic transition until his overthrow in September 2021.
Dumbuya has been significant since coming to power restricted freedom.
The military government has banned demonstrations and arrested, prosecuted or driven many opposition leaders into exile, some of whom have been forcibly disappeared.
Several media outlets have been suspended and journalists arrested.
Before the decolonization wave of the 1960s, Guinea became the second country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence in 1958. It has the world’s largest bauxite deposits and the world’s richest untapped iron ore deposits at Simandou.