Mali’s President Resigns After Protests Spark Soldiers’ Revolt
Mali’s President Resigns After Detention by Mutinous Soldiers
(Bloomberg) -- Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita resigned after being detained by a military junta, prompting immediate international criticism despite the group’s pledge to shepherd a democratic transition.
The coup capped weeks of protests demanding that he step down. Keita, 75, has faced opposition criticism for alleged corruption and nepotism within his administration, and the mishandling of an escalating Islamist insurgency in the West African nation.
Keita appeared on national television to announce that he was dissolving his cabinet and parliament, and complying with soldiers’ demands that he quit. “I don’t want a single drop of blood to be shed to keep me in office,” he said.
Hours later, Colonel-Major Ismael Wague appeared on television to announce that the Comite National pour le Salut du Peuple, or National Committee for the Salvation of the People, has taken charge of the country. He appealed to civil society and political groups to help prepare for elections, without providing a timeline for when a vote will be held.
“The fight against corruption and good governance remain at the heart of what we seek,” Wague said. “To prevent the country from sliding into chaos, we will be responsible for the provision of social services.”
Shares in Mali-exposed gold miners fell overnight: B2Gold Corp. dropped 7.5% and Iamgold Corp. fell 2.1%. Mali is sub-Saharan Africa’s third-biggest producer of the metal, with companies including Barrick Gold Corp. and AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. also operating there.
“Certainly a country in which there has been two coups in the last decade is not something that reassures mining investors,” said Lori-Anne Theroux-Benoni, a Dakar-based analyst at Institute for Security Studies. “I would be slightly worried about the level of risk there and especially the rapid change in who are the interlocutors at the level of ministry of mining with the changes in government.”
The opposition M5 Movement will work with the soldiers to have a transitional cabinet in place within 15 days, Clement Dembele, a member of the group, said by phone Wednesday.
It’s not clear who would lead the transitional administration. The recent opposition protests have been led by Mahmoud Dicko, a conservative, Saudi-trained preacher who’s been a vocal critic of the government for several years. Calls to his phone didn’t connect when Bloomberg tried to reach him for comment.
There was widespread condemnation of the military takeover.
The Economic Community of West African States placed its forces on standby, as it sealed off the nation’s borders and suspended all trade. The regional bloc has intervened militarily in the past, sending troops to Gambia in 2017 to help end a political crisis there.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the current chairman of the African Union, called for an “immediate return to civilian rule” and for the military to return to their barracks. He also demanded the military release Keita and other government officials including Prime Minister Boubou Cisse who are still being detained.
French President Emmanuel Macron held talks about the crisis with his Nigerian, Ivorian and Senegalese counterparts and said he supported mediation by Ecowas.
The situation in Mali is reminiscent of the 2012 ouster of Keita’s predecessor, Amadou Toumani Toure, by junior officers angry about the lack of resources needed to fight Tuareg rebels in the north. The subsequent power vacuum was exploited by al-Qaeda-linked Islamist groups who seized control of the north.
A French military intervention pushed back the militants, but some groups later returned and expanded to carry out attacks on civilians and about 15,000 UN peacekeepers in the country. The insurgency has since spread across the region to countries including Niger and Burkina Faso.
The government’s inability to quash the Islamist insurgencies, which have claimed thousands of lives, fueled many of the protests against Keita. The leader assumed office on a wave of optimism after 2013 elections, but critics said he didn’t fulfill any of his campaign pledges after his 2018 re-election.
“In the short term there is no reason to expect an improvement in the security situation – to the contrary, the jihadist networks in the north of the country will see a gap to extend their influence while the situation in Bamako is uncertain,” NKC African Economics analyst Francois Conradie said in an emailed research note.
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