The Pulse of Bamako

Although there are no posters up yet of the candidates for the first round of the Presidential elections, people talk of very little else here.
 I have to travel around  in the yellow Bamako taxis for a large part of the day as I am shuttling around the capital trying to arrange everything- between UNESCO's head office;  the Post office to send off MaliMali stuff; the electronic hard wear shops of  'le Grand Marche' to buy computers and printers etc to move into the new studio in the Al Aquib library in Timbuktu; the 'Maison Africaine de la Photographie' to arrange for the exhibition which we will have to celebrate the end of the Djenne Projects in December; the American Club to watch some world cup matches, and, just to put the icing on the cake, the swish office of Madame Diallo, the Minister of Culture centre below, in the company of Cat, the new British Ambassador:

 And every time I ask the driver who he will vote for. My fellow passengers in the taxis are also up for a political discussion.What seems to be an interesting choice is Cheik Modibo Diarra, top above, the ex Prime Minister under Diankounda Traore, the interim President after the coup who eventually sacked him: not because he had done anything wrong, on the contrary, he was working quite hard trying to prevent wrong-doing, but that  can be very inconvenient of course...
Diarra is a Malian hero- an astrophysicist who worked at Nasa. He has now teamed up with the only other credible politician in Mali as far as my fellow Taxi passengers are concerned (and I totally agree with them): Moussa Mara, below,  another ex Prime Minister who has a flawed record, but not because of corruption, nepotism or any of the usual ministerial vices.

 But  he sanctioned the reckless attack to reclaim  Kidal by the Malian Army which ended in disaster in May 2014. Some would say he was absolutely justified in this attempt, others would call it a display of shocking lack of judgement. In either case, it could perhaps be called an act of misplaced patriotism- and it must be said that he had the majority of Malians behind him in his decision...

Diarra is an independent, and Moussa Mara has his party called 'Yelema'. Now it appears that Diarra has teamed up with Mara who is backing his candidature, under the banner of Yelema. Many, including me, feel quite excited about this team...and some say that failing that, they would support IBK for a second term... better the devil you know, perhaps? I have not spoken to anyone yet who is backing Soumi- Soumaila Cisse, the main opposition to IBK- but of course they are many. But my fellow passengers are voicing the opinion 'Ala k'an Kissi!' (May God protect us...) Indeed.