Incaring a Savior figure during his election at the head of Mali, in 2013, the man of state was able to count on many supports in his exercise of power, in particular his “comrade” Socialist François Hollande until his forced departure of the presidency, in 2020. He died in Bamako on January 16, 2022, at the age of 76.
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Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, just as known by his acronym “IBK”, former Malian president, died on Sunday, January 16, at the age of 76, in his residence in Bamako. He who devoted all his life to politics had been forced in August 2020 to withdraw from public affairs, pushed out by putschist soldiers who wore the blow of grace to a corrupt plan, violently challenged in the street for several months .
Physically weakened by a cardiovascular accident only a few weeks after his forced departure, “IBK” had since disappeared from the public scene. Silent Behind the high walls of his villa of Sebenikoro’s Bamakois district, far from the hopes of renewal that he had worn eight years earlier while the country had just escaped the gulf in which jihadist groups promised to throw it.
“IBK” probably dreamed of a more time so calm to finally access the supreme power that escaped him for ten years. In July 2013, his victory for the presidential election with nearly 78% of the votes had no dispute. She concluded an election campaign during which he managed to present himself as the man of the refoundation of a Malian state moribund.
He, however, is a pure product of Malian political seal. In 1992, his name appears in the champion of the Presidency as the Diplomatic Advisor of Alpha Oumar Konaré, a candidate of civil society just elected at the head of the Malian state. The following year, he was appointed ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire, before the Grand Jump: Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Prime Minister, a position he will hold from 1994 to 2000, a record in Bamako. If he then fails the presidential election (in 2002 and 2007) – it will still be elected to the perch of the National Assembly – it refines its stature of a state man.
In 2013, it is a Savior, a providential man waiting for Malians to get them out of chaos. “IBK” promises to be that one. When he started in the presidential race in the summer of 2012, the country is barely receiving a military coup. Above all, Mali is torn, cut in two and threatens to implode. The Malian North is under the yoke of Independently Independent Touareg groups (familiar with the Malian political landscape) associated for the circumstance on more recent movements, jihadists related to Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
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