From our special correspondent in Bamako
A reading of the Bamako press in early March provides a good overview of local concerns in Mali's capital. The above-the-fold front pages of the daily newspapers are nearly all devoted to the various political manoeuvrings involved in preparing for the July presidential election. These include declarations of candidacies, internal power struggles within the parties, and declarations of support for the various candidates. The war in the north, fought by Chadian and French troops, is relegated to below-the-fold coverage. The Malian press has never been very relevant to the wider world because it reflects a "manipulated and politicised civil society," as several Malian intellectuals have put it. Yet, it nonetheless highlights the phenomenon of a political class totally absorbed by its own petty selfishness. It is the very same elite which presided over the country's collapse in 2012.
When Capitan Amadou Haya Sanogo appeared on television on March 22nd 2012, to announce that Mali's constitution was suspended, that the borders were closed, and that a curfew would be enforced in a country that had just celebrated 20 years of democracy and that was considered by the West as a "model”, he was, oddly enough, greeted fairly well by a large swathe of the Malian population. Even more surprising, educated youth, anti-corruption activists, and all types of reformers, people who would be considered on the Left in most Western countries, for the most part praised the military coup, calling it, in the words of one young entrepreneur, a "breath of fresh air".
"Mali was a blighted State"; "It was a Potemkin democracy"; "A democracy in appearance but not in substance." These are some of the unflattering terms used today by foreign diplomats and the Malian intelligentsia. It might have been interesting if these views had been expressed publicly before the crisis. But the question today concerns the future in the wake of Mali's three-fold recent trauma: the loss of half of its territory, the coup d'état and the French military intervention.
The country is now operating under a civilian transition government. Thanks to Paris, it is once more in control of nearly all of its territory and is moving towards presidential elections scheduled for July. But no one seems to think this is good news given the context of the political débâcle currently reigning in Bamako.
"If the elections go well, that means that we will have settled nothing," bitterly notes a high-level civil servant of the European Union, which is partially funding the election process. "Because that would mean that the former political class, from the entourage of Amadou Toumani Touré [Editor's note: in power since 2002, he was deposed by the 2012 military coup], will be back in power. Yet, we need this election," he adds, with a hint of resignation.
Since the March 2012 coup d'état, Mali has had no legitimate government. This poses a problem to the Western countries both in terms of aid – the United States is legally banned from providing aid to a government resulting from a coup – but also in terms of the viability of the decisions taken by such a government. "The institutions that are legal today are not legitimate and those that are legitimate are not legal," says a former Malian minister who describes himself as a reformer.
In early January, a delegation of ambassadors stationed in Bamako, from the US, Great Britain, France, Canada, Denmark and Sweden, went to see interim president Dioncounda Traoré to ask that the presidential elections be held without delay. A few days later, Traoré validated a timetable of action that had been around for a few months and which set the date of the ballot. But for many analysts, the election was scheduled too soon. Too soon because the north of the country, which was recently liberated, does not seem ready for an election: several hundreds of thousands of people are displaced or are refugees in neighbouring countries and public buildings remain vandalised. In addition, and more importantly, it is too soon because organising a presidential election in a few months will not allow the emergence of the new faces that Mali so badly needs.
'A coalition of all those who want to save their necks'
"It is in the interest of those in power to hold elections as soon as possible," says political affairs specialist Mahamadou Diawara because, he says, they profit from a notoriety and a political base – not to mention a network of patronage – that are denied to the new political faces that are beginning to emerge. "Everybody in Mali understands that we cannot continue as before and that change is necessary," adds Diawara, "even the current leaders understand this, but are they going to initiate the changes? This is highly unlikely."
Anthropologist Birama Diakon goes even further. "We need those that have governed us for two decades to tell themselves: 'Twenty years is enough, time to retire'. But they know that if they lose their government posts, they run the risk of going to prison," he says, "that's why we are currently seeing the formation of a coalition of all those who want to save their necks."
Within ADEMA, the ruling party for the past 20 years, just under two dozen applicants are currently jostling for the party's nomination as presidential candidate. Those who already know they will not be selected are creating their own parties. "These people are not fighting for ideas or for a vision of Mali but to protect their own standing, their own interests," says a Western diplomat, who adds: "It's quite demoralising."
It's a Tuesday morning in March, and in his neon-lighted office Moussa Mara, the mayor of a Bamako district, is meeting his constituents to hear their problems and to try to resolve them. At 38, he is one of the youngest of Mali's politicians and this is probably why he is often called an incarnation of the "new generation" of leaders that many Malians would like to see in power. "
"We live in a country in which the gerontocracy is very strong," he jokes, knowing that this is the major obstacle he must overcome. Educated in France as a chartered accountant, he entered local politics ten years ago but he now intends to move to the next level by entering the presidential race.
To bolster his candidacy, other than his results as mayor of his district, he also boasts a quality that is rare in Mali: Mara is regularly published. His books are available for free on his internet site; opinion pieces and the texts of his conferences are also available. "I am one of the only politicians to expose his ideas in writing," he notes, "I think it is the least one can do as a public figure, but in Mali the candidates are too often chosen according to who they are and what they own."
His "trademark" as he calls it, is "governance, the way I interact with the citizens," he says. "We are not going to stand out on economic policy," he explains, "we have to be realistic, we are a poor country and we have no room for manoeuvre. We have to work to shrink the gap between the population and the predatory, corrupt and incompetent ruling elites."
'Evil is humanity's best teacher because evil helps us to correct our errors'
Despite his fresh allure and his comments, which are welcome at a time when all Malians say they want "change", does Moussa Mara stand a chance? Not much of one according to observers, who are forecasting the victory of someone who has served, over the past 20 years, in one government capacity or other. Three of the six Western ambassadors who urged early elections think the ballot will result, at best, in a new "transition government".
"We must not delude ourselves," says one of them, "the candidate that will be elected will be a transition president, but he will be a legitimate president. We are starting out on a reconstruction phase that is also a transition phase. I hope that this period will allow the renewal of the political class."
Mali remains one of the poorest nations in the world. It is landlocked, huge and partially covered in desert. Its natural resources are few and mainly unexploited. A [Tuareg] separatist movement has existed for decades and the growing influence of fundamentalist Islamists is a reality. Its political leaders have not been equal to the job at hand, preferring to use the country rather than to serve it. Yet no one seems to consider what has happened in Mali as a disaster unique to that country.
"What has happened in Mali is not specific to Mali. The weaknesses of the democratic process are similar, if not worse, in Burkina Faso, in Niger, in Senegal or in Chad," explains Moumouni Soumano, a teacher at the School of Law and Political Science at Bamako University. All of these are countries in which no genuine opposition exists, or in any case, in which power-sharing does not occur; with rubber-stamp parliaments; a civil society (NGOs, unions, media) which is weak or manipulated, corrupt institutions (police, justice, army) which should be setting an example; and with a president acquiring total power including through nominations to high-level posts thus ensuring loyalty. "The people have to stop seeing the president as god on earth," says Soumano.
Many observers say that would be a good start, in Mali as elsewhere. "There is no effect without a cause," notes Amadou Bocar Teguete, vice-president of Mali's National Human Rights Commission, who also wonders: "In 20 years of democracy, what have we gained?" He prefers not to answer his own question, but because he is optimistic, he quotes a Bambara proverb which loosely translated states as: "Evil is humanity's best teacher because evil helps us to correct our errors."
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English Version by Patricia Brett
(Editing by Michael Streeter)