Political Turmoil Hits Mali As President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita Announces Resignation After Military Mutiny

This bizarre and shocking development of the Malian President tendering his resignation comes after several months of regular protests and demonstrations against Keita over relentless demands for him to step down from power three years before his final term was due to end.

Malian President

In a dramatic and unprecedented incident that rocked the political landscape of West African nation Mali, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced his resignation from the nation's top political position late Tuesday on state television, hours after mutinous troops fired gun shots into the air outside his residence before detaining him and the Malian prime minister. This bizarre and shocking development of the Malian President tendering his resignation comes after several months of regular protests and demonstrations against Keita over relentless demands for him to step down from power three years before his final term was due to end. Speaking on national broadcaster ORTM just before midnight, a distressed Keita wearing a mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic said his resignation was effective immediately. A banner across the bottom of the television screen referred to him as the “outgoing president.” “I wish no blood to be shed to keep me in power,” Keita said. “I have decided to step down from office.”

The former president also announced that his government and the National Assembly would be dissolved, indicating at the country’s political turmoil amid an eight-year Islamic insurgency and the growing coronavirus pandemic. Keita, who was democratically elected as the President in 2013 and re-elected five years later, was left with no choice after the mutinous soldiers seized weapons from the armory in the garrison town of Kati and then advanced on the capital of Bamako. There was no immediate comment from the troops early Wednesday, who hailed from the same military barracks where an earlier coup originated more than eight years ago. The political upheaval unfolded months after disputed legislative elections, but Keita’s support also had tumbled amid criticism of his government’s handling of an Islamic insurgency that has engulfed the country once praised as a model of democracy in the region.