He's back

The interest groups that helped Touré into the presidency want their reward

The man who once said 'only an idiot' would want to be Mali's head of state was confirmed as President on 23 May after two rounds of voting (AC Vol 42 No 19 & Vol 43 No 9). The charismatic ex-General Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT) took 65 per cent of the votes cast by less than 20 per cent of the registered electors. He espouses economic reform, political openness and human rights, in a country brutalised by the corrupt rule of another general, Moussa Traoré, from 1976 till 1991, when ATT, then head of the paratroop battalion, arrested the President and set up an interim government to hold free elections. ATT now says he is prepared to release Traoré, who was convicted in 1992 of grand corruption and human rights abuses.

Article Tags:
Amadou Toumani Touré, Moussa Traoré, Alpha Oumar Konaré, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Soumaïla Cissé, ATT's third way, Mandé Sidibé, Ahmed el Madani Diallo, Dramé or Touré for PM, Tiébilé Dramé, Bassari Touré, Mamadou Lamine Tounkara, Burundi, Central African Republic, United States, Togo, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, Libya, Moammar el Gadaffi, Côte d'Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo, Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali, Parti pour la Renaissance Nationale, Compagnie Malienne de Développement des Textiles, Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest-Africaine, Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Bamako, La Francophonie

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