<zksmith@email.unc.edu>

Mali Election News Update #4    April 28, 1997

On Friday, April 25, Mali's Constitutional Court officially annulled the
first round of the legislative elections which were held on April 13,
1997.  As part of the ruling, court president Abdoulaye Dicko read "The
court has noted that numerous irregularities seriously tainted the
sincerity and transparency of the vote. ...  It's clear that there were no
electoral lists pretty well everywhere, and that the electoral commission
was unable to provide the court, in several constituencies, with the
necessary documents to enable us to decide if the poll was fair".  The
ruling effectively postponed the second round of the legislative elections
which had been scheduled to take place on April 27th.  Opposition
political activists had vowed to prevent the second round from being held
by any means.

Mali's electoral code requires that the elections now be rescheduled
within three months time.

On Saturday, April 26, Mali's President Alpha Oumar Konare announced that
the presidential elections scheduled for May 4 would be postponed for one
week with first round voting now slated for May 11 and second round May 18
if needed.

Konare also called on Mali's civil society to take a more prominent role
in mediating the election crisis.  After meeting with the President over
the weekend, a representative of the Malian Association of Human Rights
(AMDH) told Radio Mali (ORTM) "[The President] told us that everyone must
be involved in ensuring that the present situation cools off, because this
is in the interest of the Republic of Mali.  We do not want our country to
drift. ... We made no promise to the head of state.  We simply asked him
to give the civil society time to meet and examine the situation."

I have also just received private correspondence which indicates that with
these two developments, the tensions of the past two weeks have eased
considerably.  At the same time the coalition of opposition parties has
yet to indicate how it will respond to the most recent developments.  The
leader of one of the opposition parties, Dr. Mohamed Lamine Traore, has
said that his party, MIRIA, would need to meet and consider whether to
participate in the new election schedule.

It is also widely rumored that some in the opposition are hoping to
provoke a coup in order to re-enter into a transition period.  It is said
that they believe they could gain access to the "goods of state" in order
to more effectively wage future electoral battles.  Many in the opposition
credit incumbency as the only reason for ADEMA's apparent electoral
success.

In spite of the many problems associated with the current election cycle,
it would be very difficult, though not impossible, for the Malian military
to intervene.  Because of the traumatic events which Mali experienced
during the pro-democracy movement during 1990-91, the Malian military is
likely to be hesitant to retake political power.  A.T. Toure, the military
leader who served as interim president leading up to democratic elections
in 1992, remains extremely popular in Mali; but he could jeopardize his
own international standing if he led a coup.  Other military leaders might
attempt to intervene but they might risk significant popular unrest.  They
could also face a rapid cut off of the bilateral and multilateral aid on
which the Malian state budget is dependent.  In spite of these costs, if
the civilian government and opposition politicians are unable to reach
agreement on election time tables and civil unrest results, military
intervention is not unthinkable.

NOTE - These updates are compiled from a variety of on-line sources
including AFP, Reuters and BBC news releases, Radio Mali releases, Malinet
listserve postings, private e-mail messages, and WWW pages of Ivoirien and
Malian news papers. All analytical conjectures are my own.

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