Sun 12 July 2020:
Mali’s embattled president has announced the dissolution of the country’s constitutional court in an attempt to calm the major civil unrest gripping the vulnerable African nation amid arrest of more opposition leaders.
The president said he said would not tolerate such violence.
The court has been at the centre of controversy after it overturned provisional results for parliamentary elections in March.
There are growing calls for President Keita to resign.
Opponents are unhappy with his handling of Mali’s long-running jihadist conflict, an economic crisis and the disputed elections.
A new opposition coalition led by the conservative Imam, Mahmoud Dicko, has been insisting on further reforms after rejecting earlier concessions from the Malian president including the formation of a unity government.
“I have decided to repeal the licences of the remaining members of the constitutional court,” the president said in an evening television address on Saturday.
“This de facto dissolution of the court will enable us, from next week, to ask relevant authorities to nominate new members so that the reformed court can quickly help us find solutions to the disputes arising from the legislative elections,” he added.
The 75-year-old president, in power since 2013, had already suggested last week that new constitutional court judges could revisit that decision.
#Mali anti-French-colonialism protests are still going ✊?#Ethiopia fighting to overcome a colonial-era agreement designed to keep us destitute. ✊?#Africa needs to reclaim its natural resources.
Colonial time is up!#EthiopiaNileRights #itsmydam #FILLTHEDAM #GERD https://t.co/ENHYOFNoYI
— ብሌን| Belen Mohammed (@Belen_Mohammed) July 11, 2020
Clashes broke out
Friday’s protest was the third such demonstration in less than two months, significantly escalating pressure on the president.
As flaming roadblocks appeared around Bamako on Saturday, the atmosphere was electric around the mosque where Dicko preaches, with his supporters seemingly afraid that the imam would be arrested.
Security forces used live ammunition as clashes broke out, seriously wounding several men, according to associates of Dicko who published photos of the injuries.
The opposition’s call for civil disobedience includes the non-payment of fines and blocking entry to state buildings.
Demonstrators attacked parliament and ransacked the national television station on Friday, only dispersing when the security forces opened fire.
This level of violence is rare in Bamako, which has been spared much of the unrest that is routine across swathes of Mali.
The country has struggled to contain a militant insurgency that first emerged in the north in 2012, before spreading to the centre of the country and to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes.
