Coup Leader in Guinea Promises Elections Within Two Years

CONAKRY, Guinea, Dec. 24 -- The leader of a coup in Guinea paraded through its capital Wednesday followed by several thousand soldiers, hours after saying a presidential election would be held within two years. A crowd cheered him on, screaming, "Long live the president!"

Capt. Moussa Camara stood in the first truck of the convoy waving to the crowd that lined the streets in the West African country's capital. A phalanx of soldiers hoisting Kalashnikov rifles accompanied him.

The convoy was winding its way to the nation's presidential compound, where Camara was expected to read a declaration officially naming himself head of the country's interim government.

Camara was unknown to most Guineans until Tuesday, when he and other members of the military announced a coup after the death of the country's longtime dictator, Lansana Conté. The military-led group initially promised there would be a vote within 60 days, but Camara broadcast another message Wednesday, maintaining the group's hold over public airwaves.

"The National Council for Democracy and Development has no ambition of staying in power," he said on state radio. "We are here to promote the organization of credible and transparent presidential elections by the end of December 2010."

The group set a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. in the capital, where soldiers loyal to the coup plotters circulated in military vehicles. The troops carried machine guns and wore military uniforms and red berets.

Meanwhile, the prime minister, who has been in hiding since the coup was declared, said from an undisclosed location that the government remained in control.

"This unknown captain doesn't control the army. The majority of the troops are still loyal -- but one little group can cause a lot of disorder," Prime Minister Ahmed Tidiane Souaré said earlier Wednesday.

The United States will be "examining what options we have in the coming days," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said, including a cutoff of non-humanitarian U.S. aid, although no decisions have been made.

Since independence from France in 1958, Guinea had been ruled by only two people until Conté's death Monday evening. He first took power in a 1984 military coup after the death of his predecessor and went on to win presidential elections in 1993, 1998 and 2003.

But every election his government organized was marred by accusations of fraud. The most recent, in 2003, was boycotted by the opposition, and Conté -- who by all accounts had become deeply unpopular -- secured 95 percent of the vote.

For years, rumors would come and go that Conté was dead -- forcing him to appear on TV to reassure the public. His declining health paralleled the decay of what was once one of Africa's most promising states, blessed with diamonds, gold and half the world's reserves of bauxite, the raw material used to make aluminum.

By 2002, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund suspended aid because of bad governance. It was recently ranked the most corrupt state in Africa by corruption watchdog Transparency International.