Guinea’s government called for calm on Wednesday after police fired teargas at protesters in Conakry, the capital, before provisional election results are announced later this week.
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Diallo’s decision would not impede the vote count or the declaration of results, but analysts said it could help to tarnish perceptions of the validity of the election, especially among his supporters.
Among those violations, his soldiers carried out a massacre at a stadium where more than 150 opposition supporters, a lot of them Diallo’s supporters were killed.
It is the second time the West African country has held a democratic presidential election since independence in 1958.
But he also said there were many shortcomings, including problems with voter registration.
Opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo dubbed Sunday’s vote “a masquerade, a massive fraud throughout the day”.
All seven opposition leaders who contested Guinea’s presidential election against incumbent Alpha Conde said on Monday the result should be annulled because of fraud.
There were no reports of violence on Sunday, after clashes earlier in the week between supporters of Conde and the opposition left at least three dead. “People turned out en masse in calm and serenity”, Francophonie chief of mission Mohamed Salia Sokona told Reuters.
Early results announced by radio stations so far showed Conde in the lead, though a second round is possible.
At some polling stations, voting began only a few minutes behind schedule but in others there were complaints that paperwork and officials had not arrived by late morning.
Days before voting opened in the presidential race, opposition parties had already warned of vote-rigging and accused the electoral commission of mismanaging the poll.
Conde’s director of communication, Moustapha Naite, said the electoral commission should do its work.
“No one wants the country to burn, no one wants citizens to clash, stones against stones, sticks against sticks, but the scene has been set…so that is where we end up”, said former prime minister Lansana Kouyate, one of three ex premiers standing in the poll.
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Results of the polls were due to be released on Wednesday, but the Independent National Electoral Commission has indicated they will be come later this week.
