Anger does not abate in Mali. Thousands of people demonstrated again, Tuesday, August 11, in Bamako, to demand the departure of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK), despite calls to find a negotiated solution to the crisis, which has shaken the country since June. The calls for dialogue by the Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the rain did not discourage opponents, who gathered to the sound of vuvuzelas on Independence Square, in the center of the capital Malian.

Two months after the start of the demonstrations, the slogan remains the same: "Our goal is the resignation of IBK and its regime", according to Issa Kaou Djim, the coordinator of the platform (CMAS) supporting the Imam Mahmoud Dicko, leading figure in the protest movement.

The signs waved by the demonstrators, such as "IBK clears", targeted the president in power since 2013, but also his Prime Minister Boubou Cissé, reappointed in June. This is the first demonstration against power since July 21, when the opposition announced a truce on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Deadly unrest

Ten days earlier, a demonstration called for by the opposition had degenerated into a weekend of deadly unrest, the most serious in Bamako since the coup in 2012. This violence exacerbated tensions in this country ravaged by years of jihadist and intercommunity violence and hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The current crisis, which makes the international community fear that Mali is sinking into chaos, emerged in early June, after the invalidation of some thirty legislative results of March-April by the Constitutional Court, including members have since been replaced.

>> See also:  Mali in chaos?

The protest is led by the Mouvement du 5 Juin-Rassemblement des forces patriotiques (M5-RFP), a motley coalition of religious leaders, political leaders and members of civil society. This alliance, which sometimes struggles to speak with one voice, replaced a traditional opposition rendered lifeless by the kidnapping in March of its leader, Soumaïla Cissé, still detained by suspected jihadists. Protesters called for his release on Tuesday.

The call to demonstrate was maintained by the M5 despite the call for restraint from ECOWAS, which advocated the constitution of a government of national unity - in which the opposition has so far refused to participate - while excluding a forced departure of President Keïta.

"Some progress"

The main mediator of the West African organization, the former Nigerian head of state Goodluck Jonathan, returned to Mali on Monday. "I invite the organizers of the demonstrations to show restraint. The whole international community knows that there are difficulties in Mali. We are trying to help the Malian people to resolve them," he said at the meeting. 'a press conference on Monday evening.

Goodluck Jonathan said the country "was making progress" with "the establishment of the Constitutional Court", before calling for "to remain strictly within the framework of the dialogue".

While the political crisis persists in Bamako, violence continues in the rest of the country, including large regions, in the center and in the north, escape state control despite the presence of UN, French and West African. 

Central Mali has been caught in a whirlwind of violence since the emergence in 2015 of a jihadist group led by Fulani preacher Amadou Koufa, which joined the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the main alliance jihadist of the Sahel, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, since its creation in 2017.

With AFP

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