Mali is to receive, this Wednesday, July 15, a mission led by the former president of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan and supposed to bring together a power and a protest movement seemingly irreconcilable with the approach of a new high-risk rally. The mission announced by the Malian presidency must set foot in Bamako Wednesday afternoon 24 hours after the leaders of the protest, just released, said they had no other objective than the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.
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They called a rally Friday, a week after a demonstration that went wrong, the starting point for the most serious civil unrest that the capital has known for years, normally preserved from the jihadist and intercommunity violence that mourn the north and the center of the country. Three days of clashes from Friday to Sunday left 11 dead and 158 injured according to Prime Minister Boubou Cissé. The movement of June 5, the collective that carries the dispute, reports a heavier balance sheet.
Friday's gathering will be devoted to meditation and prayer, he said. But he maintains his call for " civil disobedience ", ensuring that it is peaceful. “ Resignation is the only watchword. We have acquired the conviction today that Mr. Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta has neither the physical nor the intellectual capacities to lead the country, "said Mountaga Tall during the first press conference after the release of the leaders of the movement.
The message raised fears of another immediate fever spurt. Some barricades have been erected and tires burnt down at night. But calm reigned on Wednesday, found AFP correspondents. It remains precarious. The international community is concerned about this escalation with an unpredictable outcome in a country already facing jihadism, violence of all kinds and poverty, in a region itself tormented.
Diplomats from major African organizations, the UN and the European Union are working to defuse the crisis by meeting the protagonists. The Malian presidency announced the arrival on Wednesday of a delegation from the Community of West African States (ECOWAS) led by Goodluck Jonathan, president of Nigeria from 2010 to 2015, and comprising constitutional experts. Among the ways out of the crisis taken by a shaken power is the appointment of new judges to the Constitutional Court.
Constitutional puzzle
The June 5 Movement is channeling multiple and deep dissatisfactions against the security degradation and the incapacity to face it, the economic and social slump, the failure of the State, or the widespread discredit of institutions suspected of corruption.
These grievances are old. But the disputed legislative elections of March-April are said to have triggered and aggregated a heterogeneous coalition of religious figures, politicians and civil society, around Imam Mahmoud Dicko, an eminent public figure and fierce opponent of power. The Constitutional Court had invalidated around 30 election results.
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An ECOWAS good offices mission in June concluded that this decision was " at the root of the tension ". She called on the government to " reconsider " the results in the constituencies concerned and to organize by-elections " as soon as possible ". It also considered it necessary to install a " consensual government of national unity ".
These recommendations are supported by a large part of the international community. Among the appeasement gestures he tried, the president said he was open to going back on the thirty controversial results.
He announced the dissolution of the Constitutional Court to create the conditions for this reverse. This dissolution causes not only political, but legal complications, which the constitutional experts expected on Wednesday are supposed to help resolve it. However, none of the president's openings so far have deeply cracked the intransigence of the M5.