need for power

Guinea’s Alpha Condé: Once an opponent, always an opponent

By Diawo Barry

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Posted on April 16, 2023 13:00

Alpha Conde Alpha Condé, 15 April 2015 in Washington, DC ©Olivier Douliery/CNP/AdMe/SIPA — Alpha Condé, 15 April 2015 in Washington, DC ©Olivier Douliery/CNP/AdMe/SIPA

In 2010, Alpha Condé came to power in Guinea after half a century of being in the opposition. Overthrown eleven years later by a coup d’état, the former president has once more donned his opposition mantle, this time against the man who toppled him, Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya.

At 85, Alpha Condé looks to be reliving his past life as an opponent in exile, during which he campaigned against the regimes of Sékou Touré (1958-1984) and Lansana Conté (1984-2008). From Istanbul, the former president now dreams of recapturing the power that Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya took away from him by force on 5 September 2021, when Condé had just begun a third and controversial term.

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