Malian Prime Minister Boubou Cisse yesterday vowed to rapidly form a government “open to facing the challenges of the day”, adding that the death toll of the country’s worst civil unrest in years had risen to four.
“The president and I remain open to dialogue.
I will very quickly set up an executive with the intention of being open to facing the challenges of the day,” Cisse said while visiting a hospital.
Violence broke out at mass protests in the capital Bamako on Friday demanding President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita resign over a long-running militant conflict, economic woes and perceived government corruption.
The demonstrators attacked parliament and ransacked the national television station.
Initial reports said two had been killed in the violence, and dozens wounded — but yesterday Cisse said that four had died.
Cisse has been prime minister since last year, and Keita reappointed him on June 11 following parliamentary elections in March and April that sparked a movement calling for Keita to go.
Months after the elections, the fragile West African country still has no government.
Keita has increasingly tried to appease a newly formed opposition movement, opening the door to forming a national unity government.
The opposition has rejected his attempts, insisting that he step down. Earlier, tensions ran high in Mali yesterday, a day after deadly mass protests seeking the president’s ouster, as the opposition vowed to turn up the heat until he quits.
The demonstrators attacked parliament and ransacked the national television station.
Keita warned late Friday that security would be maintained “with no signs of weakness”, but signalled his willingness “to do everything possible to calm the situation”. He also launched an investigation into the unrest.
The protest, organised by a new opposition coalition, was the third such demonstration in less than two months — significantly escalating pressure on the 75-year-old president.
Led by influential imam Mahmoud Dicko, the “June 5 movement” is channelling deep-seated frustrations in the West African country.
The alliance called on the public “to maintain and step up this mobilisation until the aim is achieved, which is the resignation of the president.”
It planned to unveil future strategy in a news conference later. Meanwhile, however, security forces broke into an opposition meeting that was examining ways to pursue the campaign of civil disobedience and obtain the release of those who had been arrested, spokesman Kaou Abdramane Diallo said.
Security officials “were looking for armed men, and came in cars and rammed the gate”, an opposition member said on condition of anonymity.
Three young people were arrested, he added.
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