The former Senegalese president offers to welcome Alpha Condé dismissed in Guinea



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Former Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade offered to welcome ousted Guinean leader Alpha Condé to his villa in Dakar, the seaside capital of Senegal.

Condé, 83, was ousted in a military coup on September 5 after he quelled protests and won a controversial third presidential term last year.

The ruling junta in Guinea is under diplomatic pressure to release the former president, whose whereabouts are unknown.

The question remains sensitive because opposition groups fear that he will try to regain power if he is released.

On September 17, the junta ruled out the possibility of Condé going into exile, claiming that he “is and will remain in Guinea”.

Wade nevertheless offered to host Condé in his villa in Dakar, according to a statement released by his political party on Tuesday evening.

Condé could use the villa as a “temporary retreat in which to reflect, without being cut off from its base,” the offer says.

Wade would be leaving the villa “shortly” to return to his family home, which is undergoing renovations, the statement added.

The Senegalese presidency has yet to comment on the offer from Wade, who ruled the West African country between 2000 and 2012.

He was defeated in a 2012 presidential election while running for a third term, which critics at the time argued was unconstitutional.

Condé, a former opposition figure, became the first democratically elected president of Guinea in 2010 and was re-elected in 2015.

But last year, he passed a new constitution that allowed him to bypass the two-term presidential limit and run for the third time in October 2020.

The move sparked mass protests in which dozens of protesters were killed. Condé won the election, but the political opposition maintained that the ballot was a sham.

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