Alpha Condé: Difference between revisions

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'''Alpha Condé''' (born 4 March 1938) is a Guinean politician who was President of Guinea from December 2010 to September 2021. He spent decades in opposition to a succession of regimes in Guinea, unsuccessfully running against President Lansana Conté in the 1993 and 1998 presidential elections and leading the Rally of the Guinean People (RPG), an opposition party. Standing again in the 2010 presidential election, Condé was elected president in a second round of voting. When he took office that December, he became the first freely elected president in the country's history. Condé was reelected in 2015 with about 58% of the vote, and again in 2020 with 59.5%. Fraud was alleged in the 2020 election.'''

On 30 January 2017, Condé succeeded Chad's Idriss Déby as head of the African Union. He was succeeded by Rwandan President Paul Kagame on 28 January 2018.

Following Conté's death and the 23 December 2008 military coup, Condé met with Moussa Dadis Camara, the President of the National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), on 27 December 2008. After the meeting, Condé said that the members of the CNDD junta were "patriots". Condé lobbied the CNDD junta to arrest and jail Condé's political rivals. Later, however, Condé opposed the junta^[''why?''] after failing to push the CNDD junta to intimidate and disqualify Condé's political rivals. Moussa Dadis Camara publicly exposed Condé's request to commit anti-democratic and anti-constitutional acts on his behalf.

Condé received criticism during week-long protests and violence in late February and early March 2013, after opposition supporters took to the streets of Conakry to peacefully protest against his attempts to rig the 2013 parliamentary election. The opposition coalition withdrew from the electoral process in mid-February, mainly due to Condé's insistence on using a South African firm, Waymark Infotech [1] , to draw up the registered voter list to his political party's benefit.

In 2016, French news organization FRANCE 24 released audio recordings that appear to prove that the mining company Rio Tinto paid Guinean government official and close acquaintance of the president François de Combret [fr] a sum of $10.5 million for mining rights in the Simandou mine. President Condé says that de Combret acted alone. Audio recordings do not implicate the president as there is no indication in it that he was not simply demanding down payment on the $700 million contract on behalf of the government with no payoff involved. Rio Tinto admitted to the payment in November 2016.