Guinea opposition leader and former prime minister Sidya Toure dies at 81

Sidya Toure, Guinea’s former prime minister and a leading opposition figure, has died in Paris at the age of 81, sources close to his family told AFP. Toure died on Friday after spending about two weeks at the American Hospital of Paris. The sources said he had fallen ill in Abidjan before being transferred to France.

They spoke anonymously, citing concerns for their safety. Toure had led the Union of Republican Forces (UFR), one of Guinea’s major opposition parties, from exile in Ivory Coast. He left Guinea after the September 2021 military coup that brought Mamady Doumbouya to power.

The UFR was among 40 political parties dissolved in March during what the source described as a major crackdown on civil liberties. Toure’s party and Guinea’s other two main opposition groups, the UFDG and RPG, were not included in the presidential vote in which Doumbouya was elected last December. Toure served as Guinea’s prime minister from July 1996 to March 1999, after being appointed by President Lansana Conte, who ruled the country from 1984 to 2008.

His time in office was marked by administrative and economic reforms and efforts to strengthen Guinea’s relations with international financial institutions, according to the source material. After leaving government, Toure became head of the UFR in 2000 and developed into a prominent critic of Conte and successive governments. He ran for president as the UFR candidate in 2010 and 2015, but lost on both occasions.

Born in Ivory Coast in 1945, Toure also worked in that country’s economic and financial administration. Guinea’s Prime Minister Amadou Oury Bah described him on X as “a prominent figure in Guinea’s political life for three decades” and praised him as a pragmatic reformer.