September 1994, Keïta was elected as the president of ADEMA. Following presidential and parliamentary elections held in 1997, he resigned from his post as prime minister on 13 September 1997 and was promptly reappointed by Konaré, with a new government appointed on 16 September. Keïta was re-elected as ADEMA president in October 1999, and in November 1999, he was named vice-president of the Socialist International. Disagreements within ADEMA forced him to resign as prime minister on 14 February 2000, and then from the leadership of the party in October 2000. He then founded his own party, the Rally for Mali (RPM), which he has led since its creation was announced on 30 June 2001. He stood as a candidate in the 2002 presidential election, receiving the strong backing of many Muslim leaders and associations. Despite this support, some people doubted that Keïta's policies were particularly compatible with Islam, pointing to the creation of casinos and lotteries while he was Prime Minister. In the first round of the election, held on 28 April, he received about 21% of the vote and took third place, behind Amadou Toumani Touré and Soumaïla Cissé. He denounced the election as fraudulent, alleging that he was deliberately and falsely excluded from the second round, and along with other candidates sought the invalidation of results. On 9 May the Constitutional Court ruled that the second round should proceed with Touré and Cissé as the top two candidates, despite acknowledging significant irregularities and disqualifying a quarter of the votes because of the irregularities. According to the Constitutional Court, Keïta won 21.03% of the vote, only about 4,000 votes less than Cissé. On the same day, Keïta announced the support of his Espoir 2002 alliance for Touré in the second round; regarding the Court's ruling, he described himself as "a law-abiding person" and said that the Court had followed the law. The second round was won by Touré. In the July 2002 parliamentary election, Keïta was elected to a seat in the National Assembly from Commune IV in Bamako District in the first round. He was then elected as President of the National Assembly on 16 September 2002, receiving broad support, including the backing of ADEMA. He received 115 votes from the 138 participating deputies; the only other candidate, Noumoutié Sogoba of African Solidarity for Democracy and Independence (SADI), received eight votes, while 15 deputies abstained. Keïta was also