Presidential elections in Mali: elections without a choice?

Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, President of Mali and candidate for Rally for Mali party (RPM), casts his vote at a polling station during the presidential election in Bamako, Mali July, 29 2018. REUTERS/Luc Gnago/File Photo

September 4th of this year, Ibragim Boubacar Keita, who won the presidential election in Mali (IBK, as he is called in the country), began his second five-year mandate. These was the fifth presidential election on an alternative basis after the overthrow of the one-party regime in 1991 and the second in the last six years of a sharp national crisis.