West African leaders gathered in Bamako on Thursday in a fresh push to end an escalating political crisis in the fragile state of Mali amid fears it could undermine a regional fight against Islamist militants.

In an exceptional one-day summit, the presidents of Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria and Niger were meeting with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and leaders of a protest movement clamouring for his resignation.

The unrest deeply worries Mali’s neighbours and allies, who fear a country bloodied by a jihadist insurgency could slide into chaos.

A small group of demonstrators gathered outside the airport where Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, Senegal’s Macky Sall, Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, Niger’s Mahamadou Issoufou and Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo were set to arrive for the summit.

“We’re here to demand IBK’s resignation and ensure our comrades who have been killed are not forgotten,” said Yaya Sylla, a young protester, using the acronym by which Mali’s leader is known.

The opposition umbrella group, “Movement of 5 June – Rally of Patriotic Forces” (M5-RPF), named after the date anti-government protests began, has tapped into deep anger over Keita’s perceived failure to tackle the dire economy, corruption and the eight-year jihadist revolt.

At least 14 protesters were killed this month in clashes with the police, according to the UN.

The M5-RFP, whose figurehead is Saudi-trained Muslim cleric Mahmoud Dicko, has said it will not quit until Keita steps down, raising concerns in neighbouring countries of a protracted crisis.

“M5-RFP demands the resignation of Keita or the satisfaction of our demands,” which include the establishment of a committee of inquiry into civilian deaths and a transitional government, the group’s spokesman Nouhoum Togo told reporters on Thursday.

‘The curtain will fall’

The summit comes on the heels of a five-day mediation mission from the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which ended on Sunday without reconciling the two sides.

“It is this Thursday that the last act is played, the curtain will fall,” said a Malian opposition politician who declined to be named.

The West African leaders will weigh on proposed solutions that have been crafted in behind-the-scenes talks between the president and opposition this week.

Keita, who came to power in 2013, has come under increasing pressure to end Mali’s long-running jihadist conflict.

The impoverished nation of around 20 million people has been struggling to contain an insurgency that first emerged in the north in 2012 before spreading to its centre, as well as neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict, and hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes.

But much of the current tension was sparked in April, when the constitutional court tossed out 31 results from the parliamentary elections, benefiting Keita’s party and sparking protests.

Tensions then ratcheted up into a crisis on July 10 when an anti-Keita rally organised by the M5-RFP movement turned violent.

Protesters blocked bridges in Bamako, stormed the premises of the state broadcaster and attacked the parliament.

Seeking a way out, ECOWAS mediators suggested forming a new unity government including opposition members and appointing new constitutional court judges who could potentially re-examine disputed election results.

But Mali’s opposition movement has repeatedly rejected any outcome that did not involve Keita’s departure.

Possible compromise?

Despite the apparent failure of the ECOWAS mediators, the president’s camp and opposition figures have quietly been talking all week and the M5-RFP notably suspended protests ahead of the forthcoming Eid festival.

Brema Ely Dicko, a sociologist at the University of Bamako, suggested the opposition may be prepared to accept Prime Minister Boubou Cisse’s resignation instead of Keita’s.

“The M5-RFP is obliged to keep up the pressure to at least get something,” he said.

A European diplomat in Bamako who declined to be named said that the opposition may have overplayed its hand in demanding Keita’s departure.

“Nobody wants to open the door to a period of political instability in Mali, which remains the epicentre of the Sahel security crisis,” he added.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

With no end in sight to Mali’s economic and security crises, a prominent conservative cleric has emerged as the most potent challenge to a widely discredited political establishment perceived as having run out of ideas and solutions.

Days after orchestrating a protest movement that brought down Mali’s prime minister, in April last year, popular cleric Mahmoud Dicko was asked whether he intended to trade religion for politics.

“I am not a politician, but I am a leader and I have opinions,” he told French-speaking magazine Jeune Afrique. “If that is political, then yes, I am political.”

Just over a year later, the prominent imam is at the forefront of an even larger protest movement that has brought tens of thousands of protesters to the streets of Bamako to call for another resignation — that of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the embattled Malian president commonly known as IBK.

Protesters accuse Keita and his government of failing to address Mali’s multiple crises, ranging from a continued jihadist insurgency in the north, to intercommunal violence in the centre and a crippling economic crisis in the south, where 90 percent of the country’s population lives.

Triggered by the disputed results of legislative elections in March, the recent protests turned violent at the weekend as security forces cracked down on protesters and opposition leaders, killing at least four people in Bamako’s worst civil unrest in years.

The protest movement has brought together a motley coalition of opposition politicians, anti-corruption activists and religious figures — with Dicko acting as the undisputed crowd puller, whipping up hostility towards the government and then calling for restraint.

Between Riyadh and Timbuktu

A one-time Keita ally, the 66-year-old cleric is no political novice. Dubbed the “people’s imam” by his own supporters, he has played a prominent role in public life for more than a decade, chairing the country’s High Islamic Council from 2008 to 2019.

Dicko was born into a leading family from Timbuktu , the ancient “city of 333 saints”. As with other local religious leaders, his brand of Islam defies easy categorisation, blending the social conservatism nurtured by his training in Saudi Arabia with a form of reverence for the mystical traditions of West Africa.

The imam first rose to prominence in 2009, leading a protest campaign that forced Mali’s then President Amadou Toumani Touré to water down a reform of family law that would have expanded women’s rights. More recently, he secured the withdrawal of a school textbook that touched on the subject of homosexuality.

In between, the outspoken cleric stirred outrage by suggesting the 2015 terrorist attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako was divine punishment for Malians who “imported” homosexuality from the West.

And while he welcomed France’s military intervention to repel jihadist insurgents in 2013, he has since likened the troops’ continued presence to colonial-era practices, stoking an anti-French sentiment that has angered Paris and embarrassed Mali’s president.

Talking to jihadis

But the troublesome imam wasn’t always a thorn in Keita’s side. In 2013, he backed IBK for the presidency and accompanied him on several trips abroad — most notably in the Gulf, where his Saudi connections were particularly valued.

His conservative credentials also facilitated on-off talks with jihadi insurgents back home, as Keita’s government alternated between armed confrontation and attempts to sway the more moderate, homegrown factions.

The decision by former prime minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maïga to relieve Dicko of that role precipitated the imam’s fallout with the government. Angered by the snub, the “people’s imam” rallied tens of thousands of supporters last year to call for the PM’s removal — which he duly obtained.

According to sociologist Bréma Ely Dicko (no relation), both the cleric and his mentor Mohamed Ould Bouyé Haïdara, also known as the chériif de Nioro, felt sidelined by the government they once supported. “They were both frustrated, and the regime they once helped became the regime they had to fight,” he explained.

In further evidence of his scarcely concealed political ambitions, Mahmoud Dicko quit the High Islamic Council later that year to found his own Islamist movement, the Coordination des Mouvements, Associations et Sympathisants (CMAS). Since then, Mali’s fractured opposition has gravitated around his movement, hoping to tap on its broad appeal.

“Many opposition figures who would have stood no chance of seizing power are now relying on the imam and his followers for leverage, thereby handing him considerable political clout,” said analyst Aly Younkara in an interview with French daily Le Monde.

‘Problems everywhere’

With Keita’s many foes now loosely allied in the so-called June 5 Movement (M5), named after the first day of protests last month, Dicko has emerged as the unofficial spokesperson for the many grievances voiced by Malians exasperated by the continuing economic and security crisis.

“We have problems between communities, within the army and even between clerics – problems everywhere,” Dicko told FRANCE 24’s sister company, radio RFI in June. “There is poor governance and a deep malaise in the country. Corruption is rampant. I say it and I say it again!”

The latest wave of protests was sparked by a dispute over parliamentary elections, which saw the country’s constitutional court reverse provisional results and hand additional seats to the president’s party. The decision infuriated many Malians, exasperated by cronyism and corruption in a country starved of functioning public services.

Keita, who won a second term in 2018, has sought to appease the protesters by promising to dissolve the court and re-run elections for some contested seats. But the weekend’s bloodshed and the arrest of several M5 leaders have hardened the movement.

“We are not going to accept this nonsense,” one M5 spokesman, Nouhoum Togo, told REUTERS on Sunday, referring to the president’s proposals. “We demand [Keita’s] resignation plain and simple.”

‘Calm down!’

As the crisis festers, much will depend on Dicko’s stance in the coming weeks — and how far he can control Mali’s feuding opposition leaders, many of whom are both more secular and more confrontational vis à vis Keita than he is.

In a sign of the imam’s clout, and of the growing importance of religious leaders in a secular state with a mainly Muslim population, both Keita’s envoys and international mediators have been sounding out the imam before reaching out to the traditional opposition.

On Saturday, Dicko’s supporters erected barricades around his mosque in Bamako, fearing an attempt to arrest the popular imam. But the cleric himself struck a more conciliatory tone, appealing for calm and an end to the violence.

Speaking to FRANCE 24 ahead of the weekend protests, Dicko claimed the opposition had dropped its demand for the president to step down, but wanted further gestures from him.

“We think it [the resignation] will cause more problems than it will resolve,” he explained. “Mali’s problem is not about a government of national unity. It is a problem of governance.” The imam stressed that change must be secured through peaceful means, adding: “My age and my position command that I be measured.”

He repeated that message on Sunday, as some opposition leaders reportedly went into hiding to escape arrest, pleading for calm in a video message posted online: “Do not set fire to petrol stations or this district. Calm down, please! Calm down!”

Culled from France 24