ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the President’s discourse as he strongly focuses on women and youths. It describes how Alpha Condé, whose main stronghold is the Upper Guinea Region with Kankan as its largest city, embodies hope. Kankan’s population expects that the coming into power of ‘their’ leader would facilitate its access to state resources, enhance the building of the city’s infrastructure, and provide job opportunities. The normative expectations towards the head of state’s behaviour are that of a responsible father who takes care of his children. In reality, however, everyday life remains difficult and complex; especially women share a feeling of being forgotten by the Guinean state. Kankan’s female population’s specific expectations regarding statehood are described. The chapter shows that women adopt two main criteria along which the state’s performance is evaluated: On the one hand, women expect the (local) government not to misappropriate public funds, and on the other hand, they mainly assess the state’s performance according to its willingness and ability to reduce food prices. Thus, Kankan’s female population judges past and current presidents above all, by the food situation they faced at a certain time.
