Malian president, Ibrahim Keita, resigns to avoid bloodshed

Malian President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has resigned.

Keita on Wednesday said he was resigning to avoid “bloodshed”, hours after his arrest by troops.

BusinessLive reports that rebel soldiers had detained Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse on Tuesday afternoon and drove the duo to a military base in the town of Kati, near the capital Bamako, which they had seized that morning.

Jubilant crowds in the city centre, gathered to demand Keita’s resignation, cheered the rebels as they made their way to the 75-year-old’s official residence.

Keita who appeared in a state television broadcast, midnight, to declare the dissolution of the government and national assembly, said he had no choice but to resign with immediate effect.

“If it pleased certain elements of our military to decide this should end with their intervention, do I really have a choice?” he said of the day’s events.

“(I must) submit to it, because I don’t want any bloodshed.”