VZCZCXRO8851
RR RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHBP #0302/01 1401036
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 201036Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY BAMAKO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0329
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BAMAKO 000302 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM PINS ML
SUBJECT: SURPRISED WINNERS AND SORE LOSERS: SMALL TIME 
PARTY POLITICS IN MALI 
 
REF: A. BAMAKO 000277 
     ¶B. BAMAKO 00232 
     ¶C. BAMAKO 00073 
 
1.(SBU)  Summary:  As official results from Mali's April 26 
local elections continue to trickle in, we canvassed several 
second tier political parties to assess their view of the 
local elections.  Mali's three largest parties - the Alliance 
for Democracy in Mali (ADEMA), the Union for the Republic and 
Democracy (URD), and the Rally for Mali (RPM) -  captured 
5,893 of the nation's 10,789 local government positions (Ref. 
A).  The remaining seats, constituting 46% of the national 
total, went to a plethora of small to medium sized political 
parties and independent groupings.  Meetings with three of 
Mali's more important mid-sized parties revealed one giddy 
finisher - Convergence for the Development of Mali (CODEM) - 
already looking ahead to the 2012 presidential race, and two 
sore losers - the Movement for Renewal (MPR) and National 
Committee for Democratic Initiatives (CNID) - deluded by 
conspiracy theories and hazy allegations of fraud. End 
Summary. 
 
-------------------------------------- 
CODEM: "Can you believe it?  We Won!" 
-------------------------------------- 
 
2.(SBU)  The Convergence for the Development of Mali (CODEM) 
party won 405 local offices in Mali's April 26 local 
elections.  While this constitutes less than 4% of Mali's 
locally elected officials, it is enough to turn CODEM into 
Mali's sixth largest political party after ADEMA, the URD, 
the RPM, CNID, and PARENA - a rather remarkable turn of 
events given that CODEM was unknown prior to the April 
elections and only founded a year before, in May 2008. 
 
3.(SBU)  According to CODEM president Housseini Guindo, the 
party's relative "victory" on April 26 was no fluke.  In 
2007, Guindo was elected to the National Assembly as a deputy 
from Sikasso representing the opposition party, RPM.  Guindo 
and several like-minded followers broke with the RPM shortly 
thereafter, disillusioned with RPM president Ibrahim Boubacar 
Keita's leadership and Mali's slow progress since its 
1991-1992 democratic transition.  Guindo, a financially 
independent businessman and youth organizer, enjoyed name 
recognition and support in Sikasso, Mopti, and "Dogon 
country" that immediately differentiated CODEM from other 
upstart micro-parties in Mali. 
 
4.(SBU)  CODEM ran a targeted campaign concentrated on a few 
geographic areas, and incorporated technology novel to Malian 
politics.  At a meeting with the Embassy on May 11, CODEM 
played a powerpoint presentation on the party's vision of the 
future.  The presentation, which CODEM used during the 
election campaign to acquaint voters with the party, 
consisted mostly of a series of "before" and "after" images 
first showing, for instance, a garbage dump and then showing 
a productive garden in the same area.  The presentation 
seemed to embrace a communitarian ethic focused on the 
commune level of government and encouraging Malians to 
improve their lives through simple acts of civic mindedness 
in line with CODEM's motto: "Rely on our own strengths 
first."  Although CODEM's powerpoint was not exactly 
professional quality, no other Malian political party has 
greeted the Embassy with a computerized presentation of its 
political platform and sales pitch. 
 
5.(SBU)  Looking forward to Mali's 2012 presidential 
election, Guindo confidently predicted that CODEM would not 
only run its own candidate in 2012, but would win the 
presidency.  Another senior CODEM leader then added, by way 
of explanation, that one lesson CODEM learned from President 
Barack Obama's victory was that one can overcome any obstacle 
if one believes strongly enough.  With only 405 local office 
holders and five major political parties in its way, Guindo 
and the rest of CODEM have some serious believing to do from 
now until 2012. 
 
-------------------------- 
MPR: "Those Were The Days" 
-------------------------- 
 
6.(SBU)  The post-election tone across town at Movement for 
Renewal (MPR) party headquarters was noticeably less 
ebullient. While CODEM is striding into the future with 
powerpoints in hand, MPR leaders appear to be on a 
nostalgia-laden tour of presidents past.  The MPR regroups 
remnants of the Malian People's Democratic Union (UDPM), the 
single-party of Mali's former military dictator Moussa 
Traore.  After Traore was deposed in 1991, members of the 
UDPM's youth wing repackaged the UDPM as the MPR.  In 2007 
the MPR joined the coalition of political parties supportive 
 
BAMAKO 00000302  002 OF 003 
 
 
of President Amadou Toumani Toure's re-election campaign. 
The MPR currently holds just one cabinet level post: the 
Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries.  The MPR's spartan 
headquarters in Bamako is adorned with just two pictures: a 
large color photograph of party president Choguel Maiga taken 
during President Toure's first term when Maiga was still 
Minister of Commerce; and a black and white photo of a 
youthful Moussa Traore in military uniform circa 1970. 
 
7.(SBU)  In a meeting with the Embassy, MPR Vice-president 
Drissa Traore argued that certain "positive" aspects of the 
old UDPM were worth preserving and should not have been 
tossed out with former dictator Moussa Traore in 1991. 
"There is a record to defend," said VP Traore of the UDPM. 
Traore said the MPR's "those were the days" pitch resonates 
particularly well in the agricultural regions of Segou and 
Sikasso where farmers' unions and peasant groups sometimes 
look back fondly on the planned economy days of Moussa 
Traore.  Unlike the more radical African Solidarity for 
Democracy and Independence (SADI) party, which also counts 
agricultural workers as its primary constituents, the MPR 
supports Mali's highly corrupt Office du Niger, which is the 
government agency that manages agricultural production in the 
Segou area, as well as the hemorrhaging national cotton 
company.  MPR leaders said they saw no tension or 
contradictions between the party's dedication to the 
resurrection of the old UDPM and the need to renew and 
revitalize party membership by attracting new voters likely 
too young to remember the UDPM. 
 
8.(SBU)  VP Traore said the MPR's goal for the April 26 local 
elections was 1,000 municipal level posts.  Unfortunately for 
Traore, the MPR's calculations were overly optimistic and the 
party secured only 357 local officials, an increase of just 
15 seats from 2004.  Traore and other MPR leaders attributed 
their poor showing not to the relative unpopularity of the 
party or its message, but to "massive" fraud.  MPR leaders 
were hard pressed to come up with specific examples of how 
such "massive" fraud was perpetrated, claiming simply that 
certain more powerful parties rigged the elections one vote 
at a time by paying off individual voters. 
 
9.(SBU)  MPR leaders declined to make any pronouncements 
about the party's plans for the presidential election of 
¶2012.  Although the MPR still belongs to the political 
coalition supportive of President Toure, party leaders' 
post-election bitterness toward ADEMA, the URD, and the 
Malian government told a somewhat different story.  VP Traore 
and other assembled MPR leaders looked particularly pained 
when asked about the presidential ambitions of Cheikh Modibo 
Diarra, the former NASA aerospace engineer and current 
Microsoft Africa Chairman who also happens to be former 
dictator Moussa Traore's son-in-law.  Diarra toyed briefly 
with the idea of entering the 2007 presidential race and is 
sometimes cited as a potential candidate for 2012 (Ref. B). 
VP Traore said flatly that while Diarra still belonged to the 
party he was not an active member. 
 
---------------------- 
CNID: "We Were Robbed" 
---------------------- 
 
10.(SBU)  Leaders of the National Committee for Democratic 
Initiatives (CNID) took the MPR's state of denial one step 
farther, moving toward delusional.  As one of the first 
political associations to openly challenge to faltering 
regime of military dictator Moussa Traore, the CNID is one of 
Mali's oldest and most well-established political parties. 
Although it has only eight Deputies in Mali's 147 seat 
National Assembly, this is good enough to make the CNID the 
fourth largest party in the Assembly behind ADEMA, the URD, 
and the RPM.  The CNID has one Minister in President Toure's 
cabinet - Minister of Tourism N'Diaye Bah - and belongs to 
the 2007 political coalition that endorsed President Toure 
for re-election.  During the April 26 local elections the 
CNID gained posts, increasing its number of local office 
holders from 412 to 476.  CNID leaders, however, portrayed 
these results as a crushing blow to the party and claimed 
that the CNID would have won the entire election outright 
were it not for "massive" electoral fraud. 
 
11.(SBU)  CNID Deputy Secretary General Amadou Baba Sy 
attempted to distinguish the CNID from the multitude of other 
political parties in Mali by arguing that the CNID's glory 
days as an outspoken advocate of democracy during Mali's 
1991-1992 transition invested the party with a unique 
mission: "to denounce threats to democracy when it sees 
them."  This credo seems to have informed the CNID's analysis 
of Mali's recent local elections as Sy questioned whether the 
April elections were elections at all due to what he 
described as widespread, systematic electoral fraud.  Sy said 
 
BAMAKO 00000302  003 OF 003 
 
 
the CNID ultimately decided to accept the election results 
"for the sake of Malian democracy." 
 
12.(SBU)  To substantiate his fraud allegations, Sy lumped 
ADEMA, the URD, and the opposition RPM into a vast government 
conspiracy to rig the election to the detriment of the CNID 
and other marginalized parties.  Taking a page from the 
opposition Party for National Renewal (PARENA), the CNID also 
criticized the United States and other Western powers, 
particularly France, for failing to condemn Mali's slide into 
what Sy described as a "one-party" state (Ref. C). 
 
------------------------------- 
Comment: Playing the Fraud Card 
------------------------------- 
 
13.(SBU) Irregularities during the April 26 local elections 
stemmed from poorly trained poll workers, electoral 
officials, political party delegates, and voters.  Scattered 
cases of deliberate fraud - generally involving individual 
attempts to purchase or secure one vote at a time - did not 
appear to be widespread enough to affect election results. 
While Mali's political system invests incumbent political 
parties with enormous systemic advantages, leaders of smaller 
parties are doing themselves a disservice by latching on to 
external excuses like fraud and vote rigging to explain what 
are ultimately internal failures of organization and message. 
 Mali aspires to address the most serious challenges to 
electoral transparency by cleaning up its admittedly flawed 
voter rolls through a perpetually delayed national ID and 
voter registration program known as RAVEC.  A number of 
Malian political parties, however, apparently prefer to view 
democracy as never having to say "we lost," a minset likely 
to bedevil RAVEC and other attempts at electoral reform. 
MILOVANOVIC