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Mahmoud Dicko: Mali imam challenges President Keïta
Jun 28, 2020
Brushing aside any concern about coronavirus, huge crowds are sustaining a campaign of mass protest across Mali, demanding the resignation of the West African state's increasingly beleaguered President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.
Corruption and cronyism, weak public services and national leadership, electoral malpractice and the government's inability to bring an end to inter-communal and jihadist violence have fuelled popular frustration.
Opposition political parties have joined together to organise demonstrations, but theirs has not been the decisive voice that has repeatedly brought tens of thousands out on to the streets in a display of public anger unprecedented for decades - and which has now forced Mr Keïta and his ministers to negotiate.
The real mobiliser - the figure who wields the critical crowd pulling power - is an imam, Mahmoud Dicko.
He is the central player in this challenge to a president who looks complacent and bereft of energy and ideas in the face of the huge problems that continue to pile up for Mali, despite the presence of close to 15,000 international troops and constant injections of external aid.
Imam Dicko is no novice emerging from a discreet life of spiritual leadership in the mainly Muslim nation.
Power stretches to Timbuktu
He has been a major player in public life for at least a decade, but today more than ever he is demonstrating his clout. In April 2019 he organised protests that forced the sacking of then prime minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maïga.
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