By Almahady Cissé
BAMAKO, Apr 18 2002 (IPS)

Mali’s only woman candidate has been barred from contesting the country’s Apr 28 presidential elections.

Hawa Sidibe Sanogo was barred after she failed to pay a five-million-CFA-franc bond (around 7,142.8 U.S. dollars) required of each of the 25 presidential hopefuls.

Bamako, the capital of Mali, has been in a state of shock since last week when the Constitutional Court published the exclusively male list of the 24 candidates approved to run for the country’s highest office. Article 135 of Malian electoral law requires all candidates to pay the bond.

Sanogo did not.

Sanogo was the first person to declare her candidacy in May 2001. She was also the first, through her husband, to file her application with the Constitutional Court on Mar 14, 2002. It was hard to believe that, given all the time that she had, she was unable to raise the money for the bond.

Devastated, Sanogo was rushed to Bamako’s Gabriel Toure Hospital, where she was admitted to the intensive care unit for 48 hours, suffering from a heart attack, her family said.

The news, of Sanogo’s saga, swept through this semiarid West African nation of 12 million people, after the Constitutional Court broadcast its decision on state-run television. Sanogo was the only candidate missing from the list.

Immediately, Afsatou Diarra Thierro, Mali’s Minister for Women, Children and Family Affairs and Oumou Toure Traore, head of the Co-ordinating Committee of Malian Non-Governmental Women’s Groups (CAFO), tried to get the government to include her in the race.

Later, visiting her at the hospital where the presidential hopeful had been admitted, Thierro and Traore learned that Sanogo was eliminated from the race because her husband had betrayed her.

Her spokesperson, Walla Traore, said Sanogo had entrusted her husband with the filing of both the bond and the final paperwork for her application. He failed to file the bond and has yet to tell his version of the story.

Since she had total confidence in her spouse, Sanogo did not consider that verification of her documents was necessary.

Her spirits were just beginning to return to normal when IPS visited her briefly at her home last week. Resigned to the crisis, she would only say, “I place myself in God’s hands . . . but I will not give up”.

Her supporters have not abandoned her. Women from all over Bamako have demonstrated their support for her.

“For the first time, women showed solidarity with one another _ and denounced the elimination of the sole woman candidate from the race,” said Thierro. “Even president Alpha Oumar Konare, was unhappy when he heard that she (Sanogo) has been eliminated.”

Traore said, “the nine-wise judges on the Constitutional Court should have warned Sanogo earlier that her application was incomplete.”

The other candidates remaining in the race have had mixed reactions. One of them, Mande Sidibe, a former prime minister, condemned her exclusion.

But Mamadou Diaby, also known as Maribatrou, described Sanogo’s plight as “a lesson to all women. They should stay at home with their pots and pans”.

Most average Malians share Diaby’s view. This is because the social and cultural weights of African tradition conspire to keep women out of politics.

But Sanogo is also very highly thought of in Mali. And women, through their organisations, have vowed to maintain their support of her through the next legislative elections.

The number of remaining candidates, 24, is also unprecedented in Mali.

Among them are heavyweights like former president, Amadou Toumani Toure, who ruled Mali between 1991 and 1992, former Prime Minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, and ruling party’s Soumaila Cisse. The three are considered favourites in the Apr 28 poll.

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