At 85, Alpha Condé looks to be reliving his past life as an opponent in exile, during which he campaigned against the regimes of Sékou Touré (1958-1984) and Lansana Conté (1984-2008). From Istanbul, the former president now dreams of recapturing the power that Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya took away from him by force on 5 September 2021, when Condé had just begun a third and controversial term.