As I write these words, I don’t know if the elections will take place or not. I really hope that the republican virtue and the responsibility to protect the citizens from COVID-19, which falls on the state, prevails and that the elections are suspended—postponement would be in the general interest. Guinea needs an inclusive debate more than ever, not only on the functioning of the state but also on the nature of our institutions, and therefore the very state of the Republic. I suggest a few reasons why:

First, the current crisis in Guinea has two positive aspects which give hope. The first is the opposition’s insistence on a credible electoral register. The second is the total conversion of the population, at least in language, to the idea that sovereign power and fundamental rights must be guaranteed by a constitution. These two developments suggest a trend towards a change in the political culture of the country that we must all welcome. However, developments in political culture should not be only limited to the adoption of modern electoral standards, and to the idolatry of the constitution and the supremacy accorded to it in the hierarchy of legal standards and the law in particular.

The professions of the establishment mask a paradox. The political class claims to aspire to a way out of the crisis, while yesterday’s problems in the political game and the visions of how to manage the state still persist, especially in the conception of republican public life and citizenship. In fact, this paradox is reflected by an anxiety about the future at the level of the general population, due to a moral vagueness and the lack of a discernible difference in the approaches to governance by those in power and their opposition. The people therefore feel what every philosopher, jurist, and political scientist should know: that there is a gap between political thought and a vision of power, which cannot be bridged in practice by institutional acts.

The reality that we live therefore seems to be forked. The speech is progressive but the daily reality betrays secular, liberal, and republican values. The result is palpable. Added to the total lack of rational functioning by the state is the doubt around the real intentions of other actors. The idea that arises on both sides is that the real aim of the political game is to capture the state in order to put its coercive means at the service of their own interests, and the interests of their parents, supporters and immediate community.

There is another paradox that hinders the possibility of orienting ourselves. It is due to the tension between, on the one hand, the right to freedom of expression, which is essential for everyone to be able to speak out, and, on the other, the inequality of mental and intellectual resources which necessarily undermines the rational debate. There is no simple solution to this paradox where everyone is “expert” and where individual experience is the only proof in the argument that each individual wants to put forward. In short, everyone is an “expert” on the causes of their illness, even if the illness is rather the symptom of a disease whose diagnosis still eludes us.

There is no doubt that in such a debate all the participants have a deep love for the country. Unfortunately, truth and the corresponding mental faculty and ability, namely knowledge (or knowing) and wisdom, do not depend on love alone—even if love is essential to them. In other words, we can all preach love and truth, but not all sermons are well founded. The solution is the establishment of a forum for a rational, open and inviting debate. Above all, we must avoid such a public debate becoming a cacophony. It must be structured around the right to information and the obligation to transparency, and to be truthful about the symptoms of our illness: not only the dysfunctions of the state but also harmful anti-republican and anti-liberal practices which have long existed at the level of civil society and political parties, as well as their causes and effects.

We must not delude ourselves in the possibility of misunderstanding in such a debate. Already today, there is a vagueness about the nature of public consent both at the level of state power and in the opposition. One of the implications of this misunderstanding is the thought that citizens or activists are consenting when they follow their leaders. However, in a situation where clientelism and communitarianism prevail, it is often difficult to know whether consent is only partisan, conjunctural, partial, or even absent. The legitimacy of political action then suffers. Are the supporters consenting because of their expectations, of the promises made to them, or because they are willing, that is to say, convinced of the merits of what is offered to them? Are the supporters of the opposition camp in today’s Guinean conflict really free in their choices? Etc.

In truth, to get out of the current crisis, we need another debate on our horizons which will allow citizens to know how to orient themselves and therefore to make real choices: choices which will not come down to immediate calculations or have questionable justifications. We owe such an inclusive debate on our institutions to Guinea, including on the constitution, and the political, social, cultural, and spiritual standards for national consolidation. To this debate, I await my invitation.