Guinea’s junta leader Col. Mamady Doumbouya has put forward a proposal for a 39-month transitional plan to democracy.
Col. Doumbouya unveiled the proposal on Saturday, eight months after he ceased power in coup.
He said they planned to conduct democratic elections and hand over power to a civilian administration by the end of the proposed transition period.
The proposal, he noted in a nationwide address broadcast live on state TV and on the official social media page of the presidency, will be put before parliament later by the National Transition Council (CNT), the de facto legislative arm of the transition authority, for approval.
The announcement comes after the April 25 deadline set by the Economic Community of West African (ECOWAS) for the junta to submit a reasonable timetable elapsed.
It followed the conclusion of what the junta calls “inclusive consultation framework,” a nationwide consultation to seek the opinions of people on the path to democratic rule.
Doumbouya led a group of Special Forces soldiers on September 5 last year to oust former President Alpha Conde.
Mr Conde was released from House arrest in April after his return from a medical treatment abroad.
Conde was ousted in the first year of a fresh five-year mandate, which he won in a controversial election.
First elected in 2010, the 84-year-old veteran politician was criticized for growing increasingly dictatorial during his 10 years in power. He provoked more criticism with his decision to change the constitution to allow him run for a third term.
ECOWAS had initially given the junta a six-month deadline to transition the country to democratic rule. But amid signs of lack of cooperation and the military’s refusal to release the deposed president, the bloc imposed targeted financial sanctions on the military leaders.
At their last heads of state summit in the Ghanaian capital Accra in March, the West African leaders ordered the military-led transition administration to come up with an “acceptable timetable” by the end of April or face tougher sanctions.
The transition administration earlier on Friday had said that the nationwide consultation forum had considered a transition period of between 18 and 52 months.
In his speech on Saturday night, Doumbouya said 39 months represented a “median proposal”.
There has been no immediate reaction from either ECOWAS nor Guinea’s political parties, which have grown unsettled by the prolonged delay in the transition process, to this latest proposal.
