Mutinous Soldiers Seize Mali’s President Amid Mass Protests

(Bloomberg) -- Malian soldiers detained President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after a mutiny that followed weeks of protests against his government, marking a fresh political crisis in a nation that’s been wracked by years of Islamist-militant violence.

Keita, 75, was taken to military barracks on the outskirts of the capital, Bamako, said people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Prime Minister Boubou Cisse was also arrested, one of the people said.

Tensions have run high in the West African nation since tens of thousands of people started gathering weeks ago to demand that Keita, who’s known as IBK, resign. While the protests started over discontent with his refusal to raise wages for teachers and doctors, they later widened to include criticism over alleged corruption and nepotism within the administration.

Efforts by the Economic Community of West African States to mediate between the government and protesters had so far failed. The opposition demonstrations have been led by Mahmoud Dicko, a conservative, Saudi-trained preacher who’s been a vocal critic of the government for several years.

Power Vacuum

The chairman of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, called for the immediate release of Keita and other members of the government who’ve been arrested. Ecowas, the United Nations and other international organizations should join efforts to “oppose the use of force to resolve the political crisis in Mali,” he said on Twitter.

The UN Security Council will hold a closed-door meeting about the crisis on Wednesday, al-Jazeera reported.

The situation in Mali is reminiscent of the 2012 ouster of Keita’s predecessor, Amadou Toumani Toure, by lower-ranking soldiers 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 insurgents, but some groups later returned and expanded to carry out attacks on civilians and about 15,000 UN peacekeepers in the country.

The apparent mutiny was “likely driven by a range of factors closely tied to the deteriorating military situation in central and northern Mali, rather than the ongoing political crisis,” Alexandre Raymakers, senior Africa analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, said in a research note.

“Combined with recurrent issues pertaining to pay, ineffective leadership and overall poor working conditions, the rank and files’ tolerance toward IBK was always limited,” he said before Keita’s arrest.

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.

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