SURPRISED WINNERS AND SORE LOSERS: SMALL TIME

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.

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CODEM: "Can you believe it? We Won!"
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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.

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MPR: "Those Were The Days"
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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

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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.

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CNID: "We Were Robbed"
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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

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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).

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Comment: Playing the Fraud Card
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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