Internal military feuds abort transition in Mali

On 18 August 2020, the Malian military arrested President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, took him to the Kati camp about 20 kilometres north of the capital, Bamako, and forced him to resign. On 24 May 2021, a large part of the army carried out the same operation, forcibly removing the current interim president, Bah N'Daw, and the prime minister, Moctar Ouane, from their residences and confining them in Kati, probably with the same intention of forcing them to resign if they did not comply with their demands. It was also to the Kati camp that in 2012 the military took the then prime minister, Cheick Modibo Diarra, to sign the corresponding resignation.

Then, as now, the overthrown government was in transition: in 2012, to supposedly restore democracy, prostituted according to the coup plotters by President Amadou Toumani Touré; in 2021, because the transitional president and prime minister were not acting as effectively as they had apparently promised in order to culminate a new process of restoring democracy in February 2022 with presidential and legislative elections.

But in addition to this alleged ineffectiveness, this time the trigger for this new coup d'état was in fact a ministerial reshuffle that involved the departure from the government of Colonels Sadio Camara and Modibo Koné, ministers of defence and security respectively. Both military officers enjoy great prestige and esteem within the armed forces, especially for their decisive role in last August's coup d'état. They have made known their dissatisfaction with the arrest of Bah N'Daw and Moctar Ouane. Subjected to the demands of the two colonels, the latter were trying to shake off the pressure with their ministerial reshuffle without openly confronting the military. As proof of this, they had appointed Generals Soleiman Doucouré and Mamadou Lamine Diallo to replace them, whom they considered more moderate and more likely than the colonels to end up ceding the real direction of the country's politics to civilian power. Nor did the politicians now detained intend to reduce the powers of the military within the transitional cabinet, as they continued to grant them the same four portfolios they held: the aforementioned Defence and Security portfolios plus Territorial Administration and National Reconciliation.

Well, all this scaffolding looks set to collapse, even though both the former colonial power, France, and the European Union, in addition to condemning the coup, have reaffirmed their support for the political transition process. This is also the position expressed by the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Mali is particularly important for all of them as a key country in the fight against the advance of jihadism in the Sahel Strip, as well as for its role as a staging post for sub-Saharan emigration to North Africa and Europe.

This new obstacle to its stabilisation process therefore comes on top of its difficulties in establishing itself as a dam against jihadist terrorism and illegal emigration. The Malian military's infighting to control sectors and companies that provide them with privileges and money obviously distracts much of the effort that would be needed to regain control over the vast north of the country, which was in fact lost following the Tuareg rebellion, later subsumed by Al-Qaeda franchises in a large part of the area.

The process of transition to democracy, which had the mission of drafting a new constitution, a modification of the electoral law and, above all, an adaptation of the 2015 Algiers Peace Agreement to recognise the autonomy of the groups and tribes that had risen up against the distant authority of Bamako, was therefore suspended. Also included in the package was a formidable increase in the military budget, with the aim of enlarging the army's meagre troops and providing them with the means and training commensurate with the terrorist challenge.