Mali: learning to wait for deadlines…

Audio 4:24

By: Jean-Baptiste Placca

Publicity

Under the aegis of one of the most publicized imams in Mali, thousands of demonstrators and opponents demand the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Kéita. The reasons for such a requirement seem multiple, without any, in particular, being put forward. And, although IBK still has more than half of its second term, this political crisis seems serious. What can be the outcome ?

In the history of peoples, when certain crises come to recur at a cyclical rate, it is up to those who claim to speak on behalf of all to know how to dissect their foundations, in order to find lasting solutions. What happens to IBK almost happened to Alpha Oumar Konaré in 2002. And it happened to Amadou Toumani Touré, overthrown in March 2012, less than three months before the end of his second mandate, by soldiers who claimed to have good reasons to thwart the development of this young democracy. Thus, in French-speaking Africa, there will only be Senegal and Benin left without having experienced a coup, since the national conferences of the early 1990s.

" ATT " thought to avoid problems by integrating all the political forces of the country into its successive governments. And, in fact, he restored the one-party system of yesteryear, in a kind of unopposed democracy. Despite everything, it will still make people dissatisfied, especially among those who, over time, will be excluded from the government, for the benefit of other members of the (too) big family in power. And General Amadou Haya Sanogo, whom everyone applauded upon his arrival at the head of the country, will prove to be one of the worst nightmares in the history of independent Mali. He will spend six years in prison, and not only for summary executions and mass graves swarmed in his wake.

Now, it is no longer a general, but an imam who wants to bring down the president ...

In the absence of the real leader of the opposition, hostage of mysterious kidnappers whose real intentions no one knows, it is an imam who leads the dance, indeed. An imam including a listener this week in "  Calls on current events  " on RFI, questioned the judgment, saying that if he had been wrong, by calling to vote, a few years ago, for IBK, there was no reason to believe that his judgment was better today when he called for the resignation of the same IBK.

No matter! If the Malians want real democracy, then they will have to learn to wait for the deadlines to fire the leaders they no longer want. And since, obviously, they find it difficult to support the same president for more than eight years, they will then only have to modify their constitution, to adapt the total duration of the two possible mandates to the threshold of tolerance which they consider be theirs. The presidential term in Ghana is four years, renewable once. As in Nigeria. And like in the United States of America.

Will this be enough?

It is, in any case, the only way not to be in demanding it, in the street, and for personal convenience, the departure of a president that one has, oneself, elected. Because, if the imam and the opponents were to come to an end, the government resulting from such a change of power could hardly escape marginalization on the part of States, continental and international organizations, with what that implies of deprivation support, not to mention the image of the country, which will be permanently altered.

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• Mali
• Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta