Dioncounda Traoré

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Dioncounda Traoré (born February 23, 1942) is a Malian politician. He is the President of the Alliance for Democracy in Mali-African Party for Solidarity and Justice (ADEMA-PASJ) and has been the President of the National Assembly of Mali since September 2007.[1] He is also the President of the Alliance for Democracy and Progress (ADP), an alliance of parties supporting President Amadou Toumani Touré.[2]

Traoré was born in Kati. After studying abroad in the Soviet Union, at the University of Algiers, and at the University of Nice, he taught in Mali at the Teachers' College (ENSUP) from 1977 to 1980. He was then arrested for trade union activities and sent to Ménaka in northern Mali.[3] Subsequently, he became director-general of the National School of Engineering.[1] He participated in the struggle for democracy that culminated with the overthrow of President Moussa Traoré in March 1991.[1][3] He was a founding member of ADEMA, and at its constitutive congress, held on May 2526, 1991, he was elected as its Second Vice-President, while Alpha Oumar Konaré was elected as the party's President and Mohamed Lamine Traoré was elected as its First Vice-President.[3][4]

After Konaré was elected as President of Mali in the 1992 presidential election, Traoré was appointed Minister of the Civil Service, Labor, and the Moderization of Administration on June 9, 1992, in the first government under Konaré's presidency. He was then named Minister of State for Defense on April 16, 1993, holding that position until he became Minister of State for Foreign Affairs on October 25, 1994.[1] At ADEMA's first ordinary congress, held in September 1994, Traoré was elected as the First Vice-President of the party, while Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta‎ was elected President.[3][5]

He was elected as a deputy in the National Assembly from Nara in 1997 and resigned as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs on August 24, 1997 to take his seat. In the National Assembly, he became President of the ADEMA parliamentary group, and following the resignation of Keïta‎ as ADEMA President in October 2000,[1] Traoré was elected as ADEMA President at the party's first extraordinary congress, held on November 2528, 2000.[6] In the 2002 parliamentary election, he was defeated in Nara and lost his seat.[1]

In the July 2007 parliamentary election, Traoré ran again at the head of an ADEMA list in Nara, where three seats were at stake. In the first round, his list won 39.59% of the vote,[7] and in the second round it prevailed with 58.41% of the vote.[8] When the new National Assembly held its first meeting on September 3, 2007, Traoré was elected President of the National Assembly, receiving 111 votes against 31 for Mountaga Tall of the National Congress for Democratic Initiative (CNID), another member of the ADP.[9][10]

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Preceded by
Sy Kadiatou Sow
Foreign Minister of Mali
1994-1997
Succeeded by
Modibo Sidibé
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