Recent events in Mali have caused consternation among state actors, domestically and externally, in addition to non-state actors such as jihadi groups operating across the Sahel.
What’s causing particular alarm is the fact that there’s been another coup in the country, just nine months after the last one.
The military’s recent arrest of Mali’s interim president and prime minister is an outright infringement on the country’s nascent democracy. Events in Mali matter not only to ordinary Malians, but to the region and the world. This is because groups associated with both Al-Qaeda and ISIS have found a use for the country as a base from which to launch attacks across the region. This has destabilised neighbouring countries and threatened the interests of the US, the UK, France and the European Union.
bamada.net Le mandat du Bureau Exécutif National de l ’Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali-Parti Africain pour la Solidarité et la Justice (ADEMA-PASJ) dirigé par
Prochain Congrès ordinaire de l ADEMA (?) : Le parti sous le spectre de l implosion ! mali-web.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from mali-web.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
President Mnangagwa eschews election observers for a reason
Photo: Zinyange Auntony/AFP
On a recent state visit to Zimbabwe, President Emmerson Mnangagwa praised Malawi for successfully holding its election re-run without the presence of foreign observers and questioned whether they were required for polls in the region.
Sound familiar?
In 2011, the then British Ambassador to Zimbabwe sought clarity on whether Western observers would be allowed into the country. Mugabe answered explicitly in the negative: “Zimbabwe cannot invite people who have imposed sanctions on her to be observers because by imposing sanctions, Britain has demonstrated her dislike of one side while favouring the other.” Since then Zimbabwe has remained under sanctions from Britain, the European Union and the United States of America. Most international election observers are commonly drawn from these countries and are generally deployed in the region to help safeguard voting integrity.
The recent spate of military takeovers, most recently in Chad, highlights a developing trend by armed forces in Africa which overtly subvert constitutional governance.