National Assembly President at the inauguration.
COVID-19 and violence could partly explain the low turn-out. But they do not tell how the Malian National Assembly has abandoned electors.
Malians are called to elect their members of Parliament this Sunday. Headlines are likely to pinpoint the low turn-out. The first round had a participation rate of 35,58% on March 29th. While 22 members of parliament (MPs) were elected, 125 ridings will have a run-off on April 19th.
Several critiques have raised their voice, stating that the COVID-19 crisis should justify a deferral. At the same time, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita – nicknamed IBK- argues that the legislative elections, due in October 2018 and postponed several times since then, have to happen as they were the results of the Inclusive National Dialogue, a forum who brought several layers of the Malian society together (civil society, religious leaders, politicians, traditional leaders, etc.).
With 171 confirmed cases and 13 deaths, as of April 17th, Mali has not become a major epicenter of the crisis yet, even if the government has imposed a curfew at dawn and declare a sanitary emergency. Nonetheless, there have been allegations that the electoral process has triggered cases, notably in Douentza.
Should the government have postponed the elections? Health experts should be the ones leading this debate. But COVID-19 cannot be blamed for delegitimizing the polls, as there have been several issues with the legislative elections for years.
Understanding the 1st round
The inherent difficulties of these elections should not be simplified to the COVID-19. The first round has been enough to show that other important issues threaten the legitimacy of this election.
First and foremost, the kidnapping of leader opposition Soumaila Cisse and his aides were much more a concern, as a symptom of the chronic insecurity, especially in the Centre. Beyond fearing for their health, voters faced insecurity from terrorist and armed groups. It is clear that some voters have decided to stay home fearing attacks, retaliation and IEDs on the road to voting.
Despite all odds, the results of the first round on March 29th does not look so bad on paper with one of the highest turn-out in Mali’s history for legislative elections. Turn-out in the last legislative was 38%. In 2007, the last legislative elections to be held before the 2012 crisis, the participation rate was 33.39%. It was not the worst since the 1991 democratic transition in the country: in 1997, participation rates were of 21.47% as opposition leaders boycotted the second national legislative elections. It is difficult to link the low turn-out either to the security situation or to the pandemic.
Despite several observers concerned with frauds, the first round highest turn-outs were in the three northern regions where the 2012 conflict originates: Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao. In these regions, some MPs got elected with over 90% of the vote. Meanwhile, the lowest turn-out remains in Bamako, where voting has always been lower than in the rest of the country, with an average of 12,5%. In this case, security concerns are not an issue.
These numbers are not a surprise: they confirm the existing alienation of Malian voters with their legislative assembly. In this sense, Mali has become a typical example of a country where keeping electoral Rendez-Vous remains enough to maintain the appearance of a democratic state, while questions of legitimacy and representation of the institution are being ignored.
The legacy of consensual politics
The 2012 crisis, beyond having cost hundreds of lives, has transformed the grand narrative of Mali being a successful, if not miraculous, democratic transition: the fragility of the country became blatant. It also revealed the institutional flaws in terms of the legislative process.
When President Amadou Toumani Toure was elected in 2002 without being the official candidate of a party, he was able to end a stalemate in Malian party politics in a moment where the country was struggling to establish parties representative of various interests. His move left a legacy of extreme consensual politics where parties are not able to develop distinctive platforms, as all main political figures emerged from the ADEMA-PASJ constellation, a movement central in the 1991 democratization movement. Both opposition leader Soumaila Cissé and President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita have started their political career in the process. In the process, the party became somewhat irrelevant, and programs were often difficult to differentiate beyond the personality of their leaders.
The 2013 elections set a new dynamic where the ADEMA-PASJ became the third party in the National Assembly, the worst score of its entire history. While this could have allowed some reforms in terms of party politics: it did not.
The 2013 legislative inauguration that I have assisted, but I was surprised to see that MPs did not flock in groups, including rookies. I met a camaraderie unforeseen. I would go in and out the floor and could not identify party affiliation from the dynamics.
At that moment, this sent the idea that the parliament could be a place where political lines do not constrain discussions.
For the first time in Mali parliamentarian history, the National Assembly had an official opposition leader, Soumaila Cisse. This was an essential move as this could have allowed a more structured way to include oppositional voices in legislative debate.
It did not. Despite the title, the ruling RPM party has basically ignored discussions and the National Assembly has simply enacted decisions made by the President.
This should not change with the next election. In the north, most elected MPs in the first round were from President IBK’s party. Among them, Mohamed Ould Mataly, who is under UN sanctions since 2019, won a second mandate for the RPM.
It’s a different tendency than in the Centre and the South. In the previous legislative election, the RPM got elected through a grand coalition with the URD or historical ADEMA/PASJ, sometimes both. The tendency seems to apply to the preliminary results of this year’s elections.
In this area, party politics means little, and the legacy of extreme consensus established during the ATT era is not likely to end soon.
National Assembly looking for a role?
The crisis of legitimacy does not come only through party politics, but also with the incapacity of the National Assembly to strengthen democratic processes.
As an example, a legislative commission on Defense can be powerful to re-enforce civil-military relations. In times of conflict, this can provide a legislative overview over a complicated process, as well as ensuring that the increasing portion of the national budget dedicated to security is well spent.
So far, the Commission on Defense has delivered none of that. The Commission’s President, President’s son Karim Keita has been known mostly for guest appearances in military events or garnishing his social media publications with pictures with troops. This is not necessarily negative; boosting morale troops and building stronger relations with the armed forces is a significant step from the previous regime who have tended to turn their back to security forces since the democratization. The Commission was invisible before 2013.
But this boosted commission has been a missed opportunity to democratize defense policies, as the Commission’s role, at this point, has mostly been about rubberstamping the President’s decisions rather than broadening the discussion.
While the Defense Commission has become a prominent example of this inability to stimulate debates over policies, this is also true for the less attractive commissions who supervise important reforms: the Commission on finance, the Commission on territorial administration and decentralization, etc.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly has remained uninvolved in the peace process, mostly voting favorably to anything coming from the government. It failed to be a significant mechanism in the resolution of the crisis and to sustain a national debate. Some MPs have been able to carry the voice of their constituents, especially from the Centre, as the communities turned to each other. But their implication had to go beyond the walls of the institution to be significant.
The 2019 Inclusive National Dialogue has become another example of the incapacity of the National Assembly to play a role. This was not the first time in Malian history where such a grand meeting was organized to stimulate a consensual policy, as well as political, move. But its constant reiteration shows the impasse of the legislative institution. When there is an opportunity to build a more robust and better role for the National Assembly, Malian politicians choose to bypass it.
The real debate should not be about the turn-out of the elections, but how can Mali finally find a role for the National Assembly. I am concerned that not postponing the elections will cost lives, as much from COVID-19 than for violence.
But I am also concerned that MPs failed to represent their constituents. Malians are already believing that the process is rigged by fraud and vote-buying, and there is very little trust for their representatives.
In the last years, Malians have flocked the streets at several moments to express their dissatisfaction against the government, as well as the presence of foreign troops. These are all concerns that are being ignored by the members of the National Assembly. This legislative election is not going to change that.
When final results will be published, the question should not be how many Malians casted their vote, but what is the meaning of that vote.