Sanogo named Mali’s interim leader by supporters

SUPPORTERS of Mali’s coup leader dealt a fresh blow to a return to democratic rule by saying they had chosen him to head an interim government, defying a deal mediated by Ecowas leaders at the weekend.The party of former parliamentary speaker Dioncounda Traore, who was named in the deal to lead the transition – sparking angry protests in which he was physically beaten – brushed off the statement by a pro-putsch coalition as “ridiculous”.The pro-coup Committee of Malian Patriotic Organisations (COPAM) said it had decided Tuesday at a meeting “to institute Captain Amadou Sanogo as president of the transition.”On Sunday the junta had signed an accord mediated by Ecowas that 70-year-old Traore would lead the 12-month transition back to democratic rule.But thousands of people who supported the March ouster of President Amadou Toumani Toure then took to the streets to protest the appointment of a former member of his government.Scores of protesters besieged Traore’s offices and physically attacked him on Monday, prompting widespread condemnation and calls for calm in what was considered one of the region’s stable democracies before the crisis.Sanogo and a group of low-ranking officers ousted the government on March 22, saying it was incompetent in handling a rebellion by armed Tuaregs in the north which broke out in January.However the coup only opened the way for the Tuaregs, armed Islamists backed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and criminal groups to occupy the vast north of the country.