Presidential in Guinea: Alpha Condé, portrait of a political animal
Guinean President Alpha Condé, in Paris, November 22, 2017. PHILIPPE WOJAZER / POOL / AFP
Text by: Carol Valade Follow
10 mins
At 82, the current head of state is running for the presidential election on October 18 to run for a third term following the controversial adoption of a new constitution last March.
From historic opponent to Presidents Sékou Touré then Lansana Conté to President of the Republic of Guinea, a look back at the career of a man with multiple and sometimes contradictory facets.
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From our correspondent,
When he holds a meeting, Alpha Condé undergoes a metamorphosis.
In a hoarse voice that seems to come from the depths, he harangues the crowd, paces the stage like a feline, grimaces and mimics like a comedian.
“
At such times, he's on another planet, I don't even try to talk to him
,” says a close associate.
Born on March 4, 1938 in the region of the Lower Coast, this Malinké of origin, educated at the college of the fathers, left for France at the age of 15 to follow his studies.
At the Lycée Turgot in Paris, he forged friendships that will last his entire life, especially with Bernard Kouchner.
At the Sorbonne, but also at Sciences-Po, Condé rubbed shoulders with Jean-Pierre Chevènement, André Santini, Pierre-André Wiltzer, Michèle Alliot-Marie and especially the Africanist Albert Bourgi who will remain one of his most faithful companions.
The investment banker Jean-Paul Dessertine remembers “
a very elegant boy, and a bit seductive.
The typical portrait of the revolutionary African student at the time
!
"
Alpha Condé has a sulphurous reputation as a “leftist” with a “bad influence” on African students, whom he takes under his wing and guides in the halls of the university campus.
"
He often said:" When I will be president ", he believed in it hard as iron, we a little less, but ultimately it was he who was right
", notes Edmond Jouve, then professor at the Sorbonne.
He campaigned for SNESUP (National Union of Higher Education) and the Federation of Students of Black Africa in France, of which he became president, then coordinator of national groups at the time when the organization was torn apart in fratricidal struggles between the pro-Moscow Orthodox to the supporters of China or Albania, of which he is a part.
Initially favorable to
Sékou Touré
, who has just proclaimed independence after the historic "no" in the referendum of 1958, he moves away three years later in view of the authoritarian turn taken by the regime which will condemn him to death by absent in 1970.
"
When he rang at my door to show me the article on his conviction, I did everything to ensure that his assistant contract was renewed
", remembers Edmond Jouve.
In the mid-1970s, Alpha Condé joined the sugar and food trading company, but did not lose sight of politics.
He traveled throughout West Africa and laid the foundations for what would become his party, the Rassemblement du peuple de Guinée (RPG).
A "
sentimental
"
Organized in compartmentalized cells for greater security, the early activists remember the leaflets carried in packages of laundry to cross the Ivorian border.
But also
repression, abuse and prison
.
The legacy is still present within the RPG, where compartmentalization and centralization remain strong: the party officially no longer has a president since Alpha Condé acceded to the supreme office.
He returned to the country in 1991 and stood for the presidential election in 1993, then in 1998, but was arrested shortly before the announcement of the results and sentenced to five years in prison for endangering state security after 'a "judicial guerrilla war" which his friend, lawyer Me Boukounta Diallo, remembers with emotion.
Pardoned three years later, "
he comes out of prison hardened and strengthened in his determination
," said a relative.
He can appear to be impulsive and brutal, but he is sentimental.
He can have clumsiness or irascibility, these are behaviors that he has never been able to master but it is not meanness.
"
In 2010
, the “historical opponent” was never a member of any government and used it to present an image of a new candidate with “clean hands”.
“
I inherited a country, but not a state,
” he says to explain the magnitude of the task.
Ten years later, Alpha Condé boasts of having brought the army to heel, built
hydroelectric dams
which should increase the country's energy production and
revised mining contracts
.
But the population is not feeling the fallout from strong growth, driven only by the export of bauxite.
In the mid-2010s, Guinea took the gamble of supplying Chinese industry after Indonesia banned the sale of the raw ore to encourage local processing and Malaysia decided to suspend production because too polluting.
Thus, the country is completing for the first time an economic and financial program with the IMF.
Despite this, it is still lagging behind in development indicators.
Politics in the blood
"
Same president, Alpha Condé continues to make speeches of opponent
", judges an observer.
His favorite targets are his two main political competitors, Cellou Dalein Diallo and Sidya Touré, two former prime ministers whom he accuses of having "
brought the country to the ground
" when they were in business under the military regime of Lansana Conté.
But over the years, the Head of State has brought back many former executives of the Second Republic.
Among them, his current Prime Minister, Ibrahima Kassory Fofana, his special advisor, Tibou Camara, or the secretary general to the presidency, Kiridi Bangoura.
A former guard who coexists with new, younger heads, such as his chief of staff, Ibrahima Khalil Kaba, or his chief of protocol, the very energetic and multitasking Mamadi Sinkoun Kaba.
Alpha Condé has politics in his blood.
"
He devoted his whole life to it,
" notes analyst Kabinet Fofana.
Even his most fervent opponents recognize his talents as a strategist.
He was able to divide the opposition by stretching out his hand, bringing back to the government some of his most fervent detractors such as Mouctar Diallo, current Minister of Youth or Sidya Touré who held the post of high representative of the head of state.
He knows how to play with the rivalry between Bah Oury and Cellou Dalein Diallo, the enemy brothers at the head of the UFDG.
Accused of playing the ethnic card, Alpha Condé denies it, invoking his fellow Fulani fighters or his Pan-Africanist convictions.
Reelected in the first round in 2015
, the president promises to dedicate his second term to women and young people, but his government has not yet applied the parity introduced in the new Constitution.
Nicknamed “
Promise Dad
” by his detractors, Alpha Condé announces, decides, orders: “
A tablet for each student
”, “
free health for all
”, “
electricity, running water
”, “
jobs for young people
»… And is exasperated to see that the execution is lacking.
The reason, according to his relatives?
The Head of State is omnipresent and wants to control everything, at the risk of falling into micro-management.
He sometimes calls ordinary citizens directly to inquire about the state of his country.
"
Alpha Condé is drowning in details
"
In 2013, he personally took charge of the response to the Ebola epidemic.
Even today, he can be heard ordering cans of sardines to make sandwiches for his campaign delegates or T-shirts in party colors.
“
Alpha Condé is drowning in details
”, regrets a relative.
He likes the contact;
in the middle of a meeting, he comes down from the platform and disappears into the crowd, "
which drives his close guard crazy
".
The president is going fast, very fast.
He lives at a frantic pace jumping from planes to helicopters to inaugurate at all costs.
He nevertheless takes the time to scan the international press or talk about his career.
He knows all the secrets of African and French politics and takes a visible pleasure in talking about his relations with the great of this world.
“
I will be the Mandela of West Africa,
” he proclaimed the day after his election in 2010, referring to his past as an imprisoned opponent.
But Mandela only served one term, his opponents recall.
It is "
the greatest disillusionment in the political history of our country
", reacts the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution to the announcement of its candidacy for a third term after the controversial adoption of a new Constitution.
“
Free Alpha Condé,
” sang reggaeman Tiken Jah Fakoly.
Today, his title "Alpha Goes Crazy" resonates over the loudspeakers during the FNDC demonstrations.
Even his long-time friends find it hard to talk about this "turnaround".
Alpha Condé gets annoyed.
"
Is Guinea the only country where an incumbent president is making a new constitution that can allow him to stand for re-election
?"
Why are we making a scandal?
"He seems convinced of not having finished his work:"
We only had seven and a half years with the Ebola epidemic
, "he says to his activists.
"
Sierra Leone and Liberia too
", answer his detractors.
"
Allowing an alternation is a kind of capitulation
"
“
There is also a personal logic, it's me or nothing… He finds that allowing an alternation is a kind of capitulation.
He believes that the first presidents are dead in power, so why not him?
», Analyzes Kabinet Fofana.
"
He may be right, but the hubris of power seems to turn his head
", estimates a relative who saw "
worsen the authoritarian temperament
" of the former "
Mao
" converted to democracy.
China, Turkey and Russia are today its main allies.
"
But Alpha has neither the brutality nor the grip of an autocrat, he oscillates without tipping,
" he adds.
"
It's extraordinary that I am considered a dictator
", he exclaims in a
recent interview with RFI
, before brushing aside the reports of international NGOs which document the violence of the security forces. and dozens of deaths on the sidelines of protests since 2010.
“
I want the youth to take power!
», He says to his activists.
But at 82, Alpha Condé remains more determined than ever to come back to work for a third term and has not brought out any potential runners-up.
►
To read also: Presidential in Guinea: Cellou Dalein Diallo, a technocrat passed into politics
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