A special edition of La-Guinea TV. An interview with the President of that country's INDEPENDENT ELECTORAL COMMISSION, General Toumany Siaka Sangare.

The lessons to be learned are:

1. The preparation to any election has to be transparent and devoid of intimidation and fear.
2. Seek concert with the community. Hold workshops and forums with voters to identify problem areas and institute remedies before the election.
3. If you're going to use electronic counting or voting methods, make those subordinate to manual counting and voting.
4. In Africa, psychologically, there is not a culture of acceptance of defeat. Even in fair fights, the African traditions do not encourage concession in defeat. This is because historically, the vanquished in Africa are usually destituted, ostracised, or enslaved. And most of those fights have had ethnic characters. Therefore the populations of Africa have to be given assurances by their leaders that defeat in the context of sovereign elections, do not now lead to enslavement or destitution. That is why pledges of Acceptance and National unity governments are significant. Also, the nature of alliances is equally critical in giving those assurances.

Please visit thegdp.org, choose Africa Diaspora, Guinea, and

from the broadcast menu.

Haruna.