Alpha Oumar Konaré

Alpha Oumar Konaré (born 1946) was the president of Mali for two five-year terms, from 1992 to 2002 and has been Chairman of the Commission of the African Union since 2003.

Legacy

In his decade as president, Mr Konare had grown physically heavier and lost a good deal of hair, as well as the trust of many Malians who had first elected him in 1992.

Konare achieved little in the battle against poverty. Yet he remained ever the ecentric, one day appearing in drab brown suits that he might have worn during his student days in Poland, the next looking every inch the Alhaji that he is, in a magnificent flowing gown or "boubou".

Right to the very end of his tenure, he could and would preach for hours about democracy and development and fighting corruption and poverty – all the buzz words and lofty causes that donors and diplomats love to hear from the mouth African president.

But Malians themselves had grown tired of the rhetoric and Mr Konare's contradictions – the disparity between what he said and what he actually did.

Even many of those close to him had had enough of his showmanship, his manipulative and divisive politicking, and his grand-standing on the international stage as Africa's model democrat.

Vision

Presently, Malians are pleased and proud to see their former president now on that stage as chairman of the African Union.

Even his most strident critics agree that Mr Konare, at the age of 57, has the intellect, experience and the Pan-Africanism vision needed to chair the African Union.

As chairman of the regional West African body, Ecowas, Mr Konare called for a Federal Republic of West Africa, and he earned worldwide praise for restoring peace to Mali after years of ethnic Tuareg rebellion.

He is also remembered as the man who brought the continent's greatest football tournament, the African Cup of Nations, to Mali in 2002.

But some Malians are simply relieved that he and his wife, Adam Ba Konare, will no longer be residing in the Chinese built ex-presidential palace in Bamako.