Once one of the great centers of Islamic culture and wealth, Mali (which is among the continent’s most ancient states outside of North Africa) owes much of its reputation to its situation as a major trading center and to the tax that is levied on its trans-Saharan route. The Mali Empire reached its zenith under the rule of Mansa Musa in the early 14th century. Previously, it had been part of the empire of Ghana, which flourished between the seventh and 11th centuries based on the trade of gold from the interior for salt from the coastal regions. After the decline of the Mali Empire, the territory
became part of the Songhai Empire, which occupied an area covering parts of modern-day Guinea, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Nigeria. Songhai was brought to an end and its territory usurped by the Moroccan invasion of 1591. With the decline of the trans-Saharan trading routes, the area enjoyed little strategic importance and was divided into small kingdoms for the next two centuries until the arrival of French colonists. Mali was absorbed into French West Africa in 1895. In 1960, together with what is now Senegal, it achieved independence as the Federation of Mali, although Senegal seceded after a few weeks.
The first President of the resulting Republic of Mali was Modibo Keita, who severed ties with France and developed strong links with the USSR. In 1967, however, hyper-inflation forced Mali to rejoin the Franc Zone. In 1968, a military coup overthrew Keita and power was assumed by the Military Committee for National Liberation (CMLN) under Lieutenant (later General) Moussa Traoré. In 1976, Traoré formed the sole legal political party, the
Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien (UDPM), and began a slow civilianization of the administration. Frequent reshuffles and rapid personnel turnovers indicated the insecurity of the Traoré regime, which was the target of several attempted coups during its 23-year term. It was finally brought down in March 1991.
Another army officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré, assumed power at the head of the
Conseil National de Réconciliation (CNR). Under pressure from France, the new regime organized a national conference to discuss a new constitution and provisionally set down a framework for elections and the withdrawal of the army from politics early in 1992. The agreed schedule was met and presidential elections were held in April of that year. Among several political parties formed around this time, the strongest was the
Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali (ADEMA). Under the leadership of university professor Alpha Oumar Konaré, ADEMA dominated Malian politics for the next 10 years: Konaré secured re-election in 1997 while ADEMA took firm control of the national assembly. The political environment was far from peaceful during the period of ADEMA rule. The country was beset by strikes, student protests and an almost unfathomable series of ‘breakaways’ and alliances within the multitude of political parties, as well as a revolving door of prime ministers, few of whom lasted more than a year. There was also the Tuareg problem. The Tuareg are nomadic people whose traditional territory spans eastern Mali, western Niger and the northern part of Burkina Faso. In the early/mid-1990s, the Tuareg’s livestock-based economy collapsed, mainly due to chronic drought, and a series of disputes followed between them and the rest of the population over land use. Serious fighting broke out on several occasions; in one instance, Algerian mediation (a measure of its seriousness) was called upon to produce a settlement. Mali is an Islamic country in which several strains of the faith co-exist. In the last few years, there have been occasional violent clashes between adherents of different branches of the religion.
In 2002, after a decade in the political wilderness, Amadou Toumani Touré, the former army officer who had seized power in 1991, returned to office. Backed by a newly-formed political party,
Espoir 2002, he won a comfortable victory at the June presidential poll while his supporters took control of the national assembly. French approval quickly became evident when the bulk of Mali’s debt to France was cancelled within months of the election. Ex-president Alpha Konaré was appointed head of the African Union, the successor body to the Organization of African Unity.
GovernmentA new constitution allowing for presidential elections was introduced in 1992 and approved by a national referendum, after the overthrow of the military dictatorship by the
Conseil National de Réconciliation. Executive power rests with the president who is elected for a five-year term. The president appoints a prime minister who, in turn, appoints a Council of Ministers. A 147-member National Assembly, also elected for five years, holds legislative powers.
EconomyMali is one of the poorest countries in the world with an average per capita annual income of about US$470 (2006). The economy is almost entirely agricultural even though less than 2% of the land is cultivable. Livestock and subsistence crops such as millet, sorghum, maize and rice are raised for domestic consumption.
The main cash crop is cotton, of which Mali is one of Africa’s largest producers and exporters, along with groundnuts, fruit and vegetables. The Malian cotton industry, upon which one-third of the population depend for their livelihood, is in serious difficulty because of exceptionally low world prices, caused in part by subsidies provided to cotton growers in the industrialized world (in 2003, this was the subject of a major dispute at the World Trade Organization).
Local manufacturing has grown steadily, albeit from a very low level, and is mostly concerned with the processing of agricultural produce: food, drinks and tobacco are the main products. Construction materials are also produced locally. There is a small but fast-growing mining sector centered on Mali’s recently discovered gold deposits. Mali is now the third-largest gold producer in Africa after South Africa and Ghana. Marble, salt and phosphates are also being exploited; there are also known reserves of iron ore and uranium.
Much of the economy has been privatized and deregulated since 1997 under the supervision of the IMF with which Mali presently enjoys good relations. Mali has also been one of the main beneficiaries of the debt cancellation for the poorest countries, and it continues to rely on foreign aid and remittances from émigrés. Mali is a member of ECOWAS and various other West African multinational economic organizations.
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