As of 2013, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Soumaïla Cisse in Mali in the second round to the presidential office. Both embody the old political class of the country. A double portrait by Katrin Gänsler, Bamako.
Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (left) and his Challenger, Soumaïla Cisse (right)
“IBK, President, IBK, President, IBK, President!” It is loud, stuffy and tight in the white tent, which is built next to the campaign office of Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. It is the first appearance of the 73-Year-old after the announcement of the provisional results of the presidential election of 29. July. Hundreds of supporters cheer him on, dozens of journalists waiting for his speech. IBK, as the President is only called, has brought support and is available with a number of Ministers and advisers to the stage. “I have a tremendous advantage, with more than 41 percent of the votes and 24 candidates,” he says, and gets applause. Then he calls: “We all need to convince, especially those who still doubt that we are the best choice for Mali.” He looks relaxed and speaks more clearly than even in the appearances before the first ballot.
For decades, Keïta, in Paris and Dakar history and International relations studied, one of the Central figures in the Malian policy. Already in the 90s he was Prime Minister under then President Alpha Konaré, and then he served several years as President of Parliament. In 2013, IBK eventually took over the presidency.
The incumbent, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, following the first ballot, confident of victory
“All IBK in Mali are familiar with, even the small children,” says Moussa Timbiné, Vice-President of the national Assembly and IBK supporters. He describes the President as a strict boss: “If you work with him, you have to be really very correct. He doesn’t like people who lie, steal, all this corruption,” Timbiné.
Opposition remains to the charges of electoral fraud
IBK remains up to 12. August in order to convince those who have not voted in the first ballot for him. Then, he takes to the road with the leader of the opposition Soumaïla Cissé of the Union for the Republic and democracy (URD) in the runoff. Cissé received in the first ballot 17.8 percent of the votes. With him and his campaign team, whose Bamakoer office is within sight of the of the President, however, there is a disillusionment. “We know that the government has done everything possible to the free movement of citizens will on election day, may 29. To prevent July,” says the 68-year-old leader of the opposition. “The results are not credible. You are a fake”.
Together with 17 other candidates, he has called for the resignation of the Minister for territorial administration and decentralisation. The Ministry for the Organisation of the election and the announcement of the results. In addition, the Opposition has asked the constitutional court, the accusation of electoral fraud to investigate. The judge must 8 to to. August Express.
Cissé is considered to be the eternal Second
The runoff brings back memories of 2013, as Cissé and IBK competed once against each other. At the time, IBK took more than 77 percent of the vote. Cissé congratulated him for a good 24 hours after the polls closed, and admitted his defeat. “He really is a very pleasant person,” says communications consultant Nouhoum Togo. “But he is also directly. If something does not work, then he says.”
Opposition candidate Soumaïla Cisse (center) stands by his accusations of electoral fraud
Whether you’re in the campaign office, at conferences, or appearances in front of voters: Cissé has a calm, almost serene. He is easy to work with, but will not appear as statesman-like as the incumbent. However, that is not in this election campaign, the strategy. The computer scientist, who received his education in Dakar and Montpellier, less embody the great statesman, but the change.
Also, he is since the democratisation in the early 1990s, in the political business. Under President Konaré Cissé was from 1993 to 1997, Minister of economy and Finance and, subsequently, the environment and urbanization Minister. In this time he worked, of all places, with its current counterparty Keïta, who, at the time, the office of the Prime Minister. In 2002, both competed for the first time, to the highest office of state. It was the only Time that Cissé was in front of IBK, even if only with a wafer-thin margin of 4,000 votes. So he made it into the runoff, lost, finally, but against Amadou Toumani Touré.
A business man as the king-maker?
Communications consultant Nouhoum Togo speaks very loud when he is asked whether Cissé would not represent as well as the IBK, the old political class. “Could be in Germany, a young man who has never made anything, just President? In which country would we be then?” Of change, the stages and logic, he says, is certain: a Lot of Offices will mean a lot of experience and Knowledge. In addition, Cissés environment is modern and young.
The runoff election for the office of President will take place on 12. August
For Sékou Diabaté change, but with a different look. He is a Board member of the Democratic Alliance for peace (ADP-Maliba) and speaker of the third-placed candidate Aliou Diallo, was 7,95% of the votes. “We think that change is more likely to Aliou Diallo. He is for the first time appeared in 2013 in the policy and not in the old stories, the state is entangled,” says Diabaté on the Director-General of the mining company Wassoul’or, which operates in the South of Mali is a gold mine.
The Power of small candidates
Diallo, of the candidacy IBKs supported in 2013, could actually be the proverbial tipping the scales. He belongs to the opposition Alliance, which wants to rally behind Cissé. But the Diallos party colleague, Sékou Diabaté don’t want to promise too much: “It is the task of our candidate, now meet is actually a decision. You must fall in favour of our party, the ADP-Maliba, and in favour of his own candidacy.”