It’s coming to crunch time in Guinea where despite a growing popular movement against his possible third term bid, President Alpha Condé appears more determined than ever to see his next shot at the presidency through…but to what end?
By Oumar Dembélé
There was a time when 81-year old Alpha Condé, had earned the praiseworthy nickname “the Mandela of West Africa”.
Released in 2001 after 28 months in prison for “undermining state security,” he went from prisoner to becoming the president of Guinea on December 21, 2010, attracting 13 African heads of state and government delegations from other continents to grace his investiture.
Imbued at the time with a burning desire to unify his country, as his South African reference had succeeded in doing in his own country decades before, Conde promised a new era in Guinea, a country riven by corruption and political incertitude.
But ten years on since his ascendancy, the president of the Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) seems to be treading a different path.
In his own words, his fate is to be decided by the RPG.
It is a recurrent refrain in his speech for several months now, as he approaches the end of his second term, letting the RPG decide whether or not he will run in the 2020 presidential election.
The legislative elections, scheduled for March 1, will be simultaneous with the constitutional referendum which the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC) is vehemently opposed to.
In addition, the president of the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) says he is “ready” even though he has “not been consulted on the issue.”
At the same time, this popular movement has been holding sporadic demonstrations across the country since October 2019, protesting Condé’s bid for a third bite at the cherry and the arrest and subsequent conviction of its leaders.
Also read: Condé’s constitutional reform “unconvincing” – Lawyer
Last Wednesday, the demonstrators transformed the capital Conakry “into a near-death city,” AFP had reported.
Via video link they had received trenchant support from the leader of the French radical left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who said the mobilisation in Guinea could serve as an inspiration, including in France.
It is already inspiring Guineans all over the world, including in Senegal, where a FNDC demonstration last November saw a strong show of force in numbers.
A student of Communication in Dakar, Mamadou Souaré thinks every day about his country which “risks being ungovernable” if Condé manages to cling on to power.
For Souaré, who does not intend to vote in this “charade” of an election, Conde “will be forced to militarize the country to impose order because there will be popular uprisings all over especially “since there is no longer trust between the public and the government.”
This crisis in Guinea, which has resulted in deaths among both civilians and the military, was nevertheless “predictable and avoidable,” according to Gilles Yabi, a Beninese political conflicts analyst.
Last November, Amnesty International said in a report that at least 70 demonstrators and passers-by were killed while 109 people have died in detention and journalists targeted since January 2015.
The international NGO said that human rights had degenerated in the West African country in the run-up to the presidential election.
“We are in a situation that has been provoked by the intention to change the constitution without understanding the arguments that could justify this, apart from a willingness to allow President Alpha Condé to remain in power,” former Jeune Afrique journalist Mr. Yabi told APA.
Conde’s second term ends in less than 10 months.
“Alpha is losing the north…but it is to believe that the Guinean president has lost the north,” said Guinean website A Nous La Guinée, adding that “if Condé persists in his desire to run for office again, he will bear full responsibility for the consequences before history.
Ten years after he endeared himself to the people and earning the “Mandela of West Africa” sobriquet, Alpha Condé seems to be taking a different path from that of the father of the rainbow nation who upon his release from prison in February 1990, served only one term (1994-1999).
For this, he remains forever a hero in the hearts of South Africans.
Unlike Senegal in 2011, Burkina Faso in 2014 or Sudan in 2019, President Condé hopes to have the last word against the wishes of his people who do not want him to tinker with the constitution.
ODL/id/te/as/APA