CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Junta leader Gen. Mamdi Doumbouya was declared the winner of Guinea’s presidential election held over the weekend, according to incomplete results released late on Tuesday, the country's first election since a 2021 coup.
Doumbouya won 86.72% of the votes counted so far, according to the General Directorate of Elections. Ahead of the vote on Sunday, analysts had predicted that a weakened opposition would result in Doumbouya's win.
The election was widely as a means to legitimize Doumbouya's stay in power. It was also the culmination of a transition process that began four years ago after Doumbouya ousted President Alpha Condé. The junta leader has since clamped down on opposition and dissent, critics say, leaving him with no major opponents among the eight other candidates who were in the race.
More than 50 political parties were dissolved, and major opposition candidates were either banned from contesting on the grounds of technicalities or were in exile following the clampdown.
Lesser-known Yéro Baldé, a former education minister in Alpha Condé's government, came a distant second with 6.51% of the votes. The directorate said that 80.95% of the registered 6.7 million voters had voted in the election.
After seizing power, Doumbouya had said that he and other military officers would not run in elections. However, a September referendum allowed officers to run and extended the presidential term from five to seven years.
Rich in mineral resources with a 15-million-strong population, half of the country is mired in poverty and experiences record levels of food insecurity, according to the World Food Program.
The Simandou iron ore project, a 75% Chinese-owned mega mining project at the world's largest iron deposit, has been the focal point of infrastructural and economic revitalization for the junta.
Production at the site began last month after decades of delay. The authorities are banking on the project to create thousands of jobs and open investments in other sectors, including education and health.
Guinea is one of the several West African countries that have seen a coup or coup attempt since 2020. Military officers have taken on popular discontent with deteriorating security, underwhelming economies, or disputed elections to seize power.
Since November, Guinea-Bissau and Benin have also gone through coups.
Officials count ballots at a polling station as polls close during the presidential election in Conakry, Guinea, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Fode Toure)
President Donald Trump's administration announced on Tuesday that it’s freezing child care funds to Minnesota after a series of fraud schemes in recent years.
Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill said on the social platform X that the step is in response to “blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country.”
“We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud,” he said.
The announcement comes one day after U.S. Homeland Security officials were in Minneapolis conducting a fraud investigation by going to unidentified businesses and questioning workers.
There have been years of fraud investigation that began with the $300 million scheme at the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, for which 57 defendants in Minnesota have been convicted. Prosecutors said the organization was at the center of the country’s largest COVID-19-related fraud scam, when defendants exploited a state-run, federally funded program intended to provide food for children.
A federal prosecutor alleged earlier in December that half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 programs in Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen. Most of the defendants are Somali Americans, they said.
O’Neill, who is serving as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said in the social media post Tuesday that payments across the U.S. through the Administration for Children and Families, an agency within the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, will now require “justification and a receipt or photo evidence” before money is sent. They have also launched a fraud-reporting hotline and email address, he said.
He also called out a right-wing influencer who had posted a video Friday claiming he found that day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had committed up to $100 million in fraud. O’Neill said he has demanded Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz submit an audit of these centers that includes attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations and inspections.
Walz's office did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, has said fraud will not be tolerated and his administration “will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.”
Walz has said an audit due by late January should give a better picture of the extent of the fraud. He said his administration is taking aggressive action to prevent additional fraud. He has long defended how his administration responded.
Minnesota’s most prominent Somali American, Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, has urged people not to blame an entire community for the actions of a relative few.
FILE - Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks during a House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing, June 12, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)
FILE - State Sen. Michelle Benson reacts at a news conference on Wednesday, April 10, 2019 at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul to a report by the state's legislative auditor on combatting fraud in Minnesota's Child Care Assistance Program. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski,File)
