ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION<br/> <br />Guinea security forces used guns, tear gas and truncheons on Thursday (May 10) to scatter protesters angered by the government's handling of forthcoming parliamentary elections, according to witnesses.<br/> <br />Witnesses said more than two thousand people joined the protest before police charged and that at least two people were injured by live rounds.<br/> <br />One protester said he was shot in the foot by a soldier he approached when he saw him struggling with an elderly man.<br/> <br />Another protester said he saw a man shot in the back during the clashes, in which some demonstrators lobbed chunks of concrete at the police.<br/> <br />Tensions have been rising in the West African state between the administration of President Alpha Conde and the opposition, which has accused him of attempting to consolidate power by pre-rigging the polls in his favour.<br/> <br />Wrangling over how to organize the vote has caused the date of the poll, initially meant to come on the heels of Conde's election in late 2010, to backslide repeatedly.<br/> <br />Others at the demonstration in the Bambeto neighbourhood of Conakry shouted "Alpha Zero" and "Down with CENI (independent national electoral commission)".<br/> <br />A government spokesman said that the demonstration had been authorised, but that police were forced to intervene after the protesters became unruly. He gave no details on injuries.<br/> <br />Conde last month scrapped a July 8 election date to give officials more time to fix problems in the voter registration system, a move welcomed by opposition parties.<br/> <br />But opposition figures have also demanded that electoral body officials resign and be replaced over concerns that they are biased in Conde's favour.<br/> <br />The standoff has heightened tensions in the nation which has been plagued by coups and has rekindled divisions between the country's two most populous ethnicities, the Malinke and the Peul.<br/> <br />Conde, a Malinke, narrowly defeated Peul candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo in the 2010 polls.
