Mali: Traore is a Temporary Cut in Two Countries

President of the National Assembly, Dioncounda Traore inherits a power that took over the coup of 22 March, which justified their coup by the negligence of the authorities deal with the Tuareg rebellion in the north but made accelerate the progress of the insurgents.

Twenty days after the coup, the Tuareg of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Islamist militias, including Ansar Dine, took the cities of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu and control three-quarters of Malian territory.

The man for the job?

Although many Malians see in Dioncounda Traore, 70, an incarnation of the elites who were unable to maintain order in the North, its supporters say, them, he is the man for the job. "He is a man of great courage, a great calm, everything the country needs now," says Tiebilé Drame, who coasted in a prison cell in the 1980s, when both had been imprisoned under the dictatorship of Moussa Traoré.

A mathematician by training, spent by the Soviet Union, Algeria and France, Dioncounda Traore at the time was a union activist and was one of the leaders of the generation of "African spring" in the early 1990s. In Mali, this movement has brought down the regime of Moussa Traoré in 1991.

In subsequent years, Dioncounda Traore is a figure of Malian politics and participates in the formation of ADEMA, the Alliance for Democracy in Mali which includes former opponents dictature.Il occupies repeatedly ministerial functions, including the Defence and Foreign Affairs, chaired by Alpha Oumar Konare.

President "by accident"

Earlier this year, while the Tuareg rebels in return benefit from many former mercenaries who served in the Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi, Dioncounda Traore warned against the risks of coups, even if a presidential election is scheduled on April 29. The coup actually took place before the election, and Traore now finds himself at the head of a transitional administration. The irony does not escape him certainly will.

Under the agreement negotiated with the coup of Captain Amadou Sanogo, Dioncounda Traore must organize a presidential election within 40 days. The mission seems impossible. Some even question the ability of Traore to face the crisis in the north. "As president of the National Assembly, he never had the courage to tell the people the truth about what happened in the North, "said Mariam Sacko, street vendor in Bamako.

For Aziz Ould Mohamed, who also lives Bamako, its proximity to the deposed government of Amadou Toumani Toure is also a handicap. "Dioncounda, he says, is president by accident."