Alpha Conde an all powerful miner president
Upon his election in 2010, Conde claimed he would strengthen Guinea as a democracy and fight corruption in his country, but he and his son have since been implicated in a number of corruption scandals mostly related to the mining industry,and suspected of election rigging.
Condé who had been president since a bloodless 1984 coup. won 19.6 percent of the vote in Guinea’s presidential election, held on 19 December 1993. Lansana Conté, who had been president since a bloodless 1984 coup d’etat, won that election with 51.7 percent of the vote.
Condé’s supporters alleged fraud in this election after the Supreme Court nullified results in the Kankan and Siguiri prefectures, where Condé had received more than 90 percent of the vote. In the 1998 presidential election, Condé ran again and received 17.6 percent of the vote, placing third behind Conté (56.1 percent) and Mamadou Boye Bâ (24.6 percent). On 16 December, two days after the poll, Condé was arrested and charged with trying to leave the country illegally; he was also charged with attempting to recruit forces to destabilize the government.
Controversy during his detention focused on whether he could be represented by foreign as well as domestic lawyers, and whether defense lawyers were being given full access to him in jail. Condé’s trial, initially scheduled to begin in September 1999, did not begin until April 2000. Condé, along with 47 co-defendants, was charged with hiring mercenaries, planning to assassinate President Conté, and upsetting the state’s security.
Defense lawyers began by calling for the judge to immediately release their clients, then quit, saying that under the circumstances they could not properly make a defense. The trial was thus delayed several times, during which time Condé refused to speak in court, and his co-defendants denied all of the charges. The trial finally continued in August, and in mid-September Condé was sentenced to jail for five years.
Assassination attempt
On 19 July 2011, the presidential residence was shelled, resulting in the death of a presidential guard and the injuries of two others; Condé, however, survived the assassination attempt. A former army chief and a member of the presidential guard were arrested hours after the two attacks on his house. The President later spoke to the country saying that “My house was attacked last night, but I congratulate the presidential guard.