A coup in Mali is unlikely to make matters better

A COUP D’ETAT is almost never good news. In Mali the descent into violence accelerated dramatically in March 2012, when soldiers mutinied and launched attacks on the presidential palace, the state broadcaster and a military barracks in Bamako, the capital. The then president, Amadou Toumani Touré, was forced into exile. Within months, jihadists had taken over much of northern Mali. By the start of 2013 France felt obliged to intervene, sending soldiers and its air force to push the militants out of their strongholds in the cities of Timbuktu and Gao.That seemed to have saved Mali from a terrible fate: the state’s complete collapse into the hands of fanatics. But the experience of 2012 could repeat itself. On August 18th soldiers in Bamako again left their barracks to overthrow the government. The president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who came to power in elections in 2013, was arrested with his prime minister, and forced to resign (see ). As in 2012 the coup plotters have promised new elections. But, as then, the result may be more violence.