Amadou Toumani Touré, Malian soldier and politician, President of Mali
Amadou Toumani Touré (4 November 1948 – 9 November 2020) was a Malian politician. He supervised Mali's first multiparty elections as chairman of the transitional government (1991–1992), and later became the second democratically-elected President of Mali (2002–2012).
Touré was head of President Moussa Traoré's personal guard (and parachute regiment) when a popular revolution overthrew the regime in March 1991; Colonel Touré then arrested the President and led the revolution onward. He presided over a year-long military-civilian transition process that produced a new Constitution and multiparty elections, then handed power to Mali's first democratically-elected president, Alpha Oumar Konaré, on 6 June 1992. Konaré promoted Touré to the rank of General.
Ten years later, after retiring from the army, Touré entered politics as a civilian and won the 2002 presidential election with a broad coalition of support. He was easily re-elected in 2007 to a second and final term. On 22 March 2012, shortly before his scheduled departure from office, disgruntled soldiers initiated a coup d'état that forced him into hiding. As part of the agreement to restore constitutional order to Mali, Touré resigned from the presidency on 8 April, and eleven days later he went into exile.