People light tires on fire to protest the Malian army’s entry into Kidal, Mali, July 5, 2013. REUTERS/Stringer
On Sunday, presidential campaigns kicked off for Mali’s July 28th national election, less than 24 hours after government authorities accused Tuareg rebels of violating a ceasefire.
The peace deal in question is newish — the Ouagadougou accord was signed on June 19 — and concerns a strategic northern town held by the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (NMLA). NMLA rebels, alongside other Tuareg groups, took over Mali’s north in 2012, only to see their rebellion co-opted by Islamist militants whose campaign in turn prompted a French intervention in January 2013. Following Burkino Faso-mediated talks, NMLA representatives agreed to disarm and allow French troops access to Kidal. However, the first units to enter the city on July 5 were met with angry NMLA-led demonstrations that lasted through the weekend; three soldiers were injured.
True, the violence was minor — protesters were unarmed apart from large stones they used to damage army vehicles and ambulances. However, the so-called Kidal problem — symbolic of the longstanding enmity between Mali’s North and South — may be a portent to the challenges in the lead up to elections. Namely political inclusion of residents of northern regions under NMLA control. On Monday, a leading presidential candidate, Tiebile Drame, who assisted in negotiating the Ouagadougou deal, asked Mali’s Constitutional Court to postpone national elections as electoral lists for voters in Kidal had yet to be drawn up. Other candidates, including former Prime Minister Soumana Sacko, have decried the inclusion of Kidal voters in the face of the NMLA’s reluctance to give up their control.
Then again, the question may be largely academic. It’s hard to imagine that Malian authorities will be able to register Kidal’s 35,000 residents (Mali has 6.9 million registered voters) in the three weeks left before elections when government authorities have yet to reassert their authority; within the town, several dozen residents have reportedly sought refuge on a military base to escape NMLA reprisals after they openly supported Malian soldiers. Furthermore, the NMLA has yet to endorse national elections. Not that the Kidal problem is the only challenge facing Mali’s interim government.
With its Western aid now contingent on restoring political stability, Bamako has rushed to meet an election date heavily influenced by France and the international community. But Mali’s electoral commission has yet to register the 350,000 young voters who do not hold voting cards, which were printed based on a 2010 census. Mali’s large refugee population, esteemed at nearly 200,000 people spread across Burkino Faso, Niger, and Mauritania, in addition to the nearly 200,000 residents internally displaced within the country, is equally problematic. As is the specter of voter intimidation in regions still under Tuareg control. (Not to mention the pockets of jihadist resistance in northern Mali.)
If the logistical obstacles can be smoothed out, however, officials will still need to draw voters. A far from inconsequential task given that Mali’s last election saw a grim 40% turnout. Unfortunately, the current Western-dictated timetable, while politically expedient for France and company, offers little to attract voters weary of an 18-month-old political crisis. July 28, which coincides with Ramadan in this predominantly Muslim country, also falls smack in the middle of Mali’s rainiest and most critical agricultural season. Of course, if Malians do turn out — Kidal’s inclusion notwithstanding — voters will have a dizzying array of choices: 28 candidates have already registered for the national ballot.
