Veteran opponent Alpha Conde finally wins Guinea's top job
Tue, Nov 16, 2010
AFP
CONAKRY - Alpha Conde's lifelong battle against a series of despotic and military regimes has landed him in exile and in prison, and now a final push for power has led to the 72-year-old winning the nation's top job.
The veteran opposition politician was on Monday announced the winner in Guinea's first democratic election since gaining independence from France in 1958 after garnering 52.52 per cent of votes in a tight race against former premier Cellou Dalein Diallo.
A slender man who walks with a slight limp, Alpha Conde defends the values of the left, but while he remains closed-mouthed with the press he is a skilled public speaker who knows how to work an audience.
Both his allies and critics acknowledge his charisma and intelligence, but he is also described as authoritarian and impulsive, someone who rarely listens to others and often acts alone.
Those who support him consider him untainted, a "new man" who has never had the opportunity to "participate in the looting of the country."
Born on March 4, 1938, in Boke in Lower Guinea, Conde comes from the Malinke tribe which is mostly found in the Upper Guinea.
After a first round of voting Conde was in the run-off with ex-prime minister Diallo, from the Fulani tribe, pitting the country's two ethnic majorities against each other.
However the change in the race, and new alliances, appeared to have gone in Conde's favour, after his rival was initially declared the poll favourite having won 43 per cent to his 18 per cent in the first round.
In Conakry, one of Diallo's supporters accuses Conde of having "played with fire" on the issue of ethnicity during the campaign, when he lambasted the "Fulani Mafia."
Conde left to France at age 15 to study, later graduating with degrees in economics, law and sociology. He went on to teach at the prestigious Sorbonne University in Paris.
In the 1960s he ran the Federation of Black African students in France and led a movement opposing the dictatorial regime of Ahmed Sekou Toure, Guinea's first president after independence from France in 1958.
Sekou Toure condemned Conde to death in absentia in 1970.
During an exile of some 30 years, Conde nourished ties with several personalities including then French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner.
Conde returned to Guinea seven years after Sekou Toure's death in 1991.
President Lansana Conte, who seized power in a coup, legalised political parties, allowing Conde to take part in elections in 1993 and 1998, both widely criticised as being rigged.
However Conde was officially credited with winning 27 per cent and 18 per cent of votes in the respective elections.
The founder of the Rally of Guinean People (RPG) was arrested just after the 1998 election and sentenced in 2000 for "undermining the authority of the state."
Under international pressure, he was "pardoned" in 2001.
Exiting prison he said his "model" was Nelson Mandela who was imprisoned by South Africa's apartheid government and went on to become the country's first black president.
"It is necessary to be like him, to forgive, but never forget," said Conde.
In 2003 he joined other opposition parties in boycotting presidential elections.
After the death of Conte and the 2008 coup, he called for elections and was one of the first to implicate the head of the junta for responsibility in the September 2009 massacre of over 150 protesters in a Conakry stadium.
Conde has been married three times and has one son.
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