The Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS Member States ended their 
extraordinary summit on Guinea in Abuja on Saturday, 10th January 2009 by 
rejecting a military-led transition in Guinea and barring the country’s 
military leaders from attending meetings of all decision-making bodies of the 
Community in accordance with the provision of the 2001 regional Protocol on 
Democracy and Good Governance.

The principles enshrined in the Protocol, which are subscribed to by all the 
Member States, calls for zero tolerance for power obtained or maintained by 
unconstitutional means and requires that accession to power should only be 
through free, fair and transparent elections.

The Summit urged the ruling National Council for Democracy and Development 
(CNDD) to take immediate steps  to restore constitutional order and resolved 
to remain engaged with Guinea in order to ensure the early restoration of the 
country to constitutional order. 

In this regard, the Summit proposed modalities for restoring the rule of law 
in the country, including the requirement that the military junta establish a 
National Transitional Council, a legislative body of civilians and the 
military, that will work for the attainment of the objectives of returning the 
country to democracy by holding free, fair and transparent elections in 2009. 

Members of the CNDD, the transitional Prime Minister and Members of his 
government will not be eligible to contest the elections which must be held 
before the end of 2009.

Moreover, the Summit called for the establishment of an inclusive Consultative 
Forum of all the country’s stakeholders that will reflect its ethnic, regional 
and gender diversity and constitute a framework for dialogue to strengthen 
national cohesion.

As a complement to these measures and to facilitate the process of the early 
restoration of constitutional rule, the Summit agreed on nine other 
accompanying activities, including the maintenance of permanent and 
constructive dialogue with the CNDD, all stakeholders in Guinea and partners 
to ensure that immediate steps were taken to implement recommendations.

It also resolved to push for the inclusion of Guinea on the agenda of the UN 
Peace Building Commission as a de facto fragile and post-conflict country to 
enable the country access the UN Peace Building Fund to develop its 
infrastructure and facilitate the return to sustainable development.

The Heads of State and Government agreed to work with the international 
community and internal stakeholders to establish benchmarks and timelines for 
the completion of identified tasks on the transition roadmap, including the 
completion of the voter registration exercise, the provision of voter 
identification cards and the mobilization of funds for these exercises.

They called on the international community to continue to provide funding for 
socio-economic programmes in Guinea to ensure a peaceful and successful 
transition.  In this regard, the Summit urged international partners, 
particularly the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the 
European Union (EU) to continue their financial support for these programmes 
in order to keep on track the transition to constitutional rule, democracy and 
good governance.