In Mali, launch of national consultations for the transition supposed to lead to elections

Published on : 12/11/2021 – 16:03

A first step towards a return to civilian government in Mali? The ruling military junta launched national consultations on Saturday 11 December, presented by the authorities as a crucial moment in the transition supposed to lead to the holding of an election.

These national refoundation meetings have opened at the local level, in Ségou (center) for example, we learned from the mayor Nouhoum Diarra.

They are to last two days in the so-called “interior” communes, that is to say outside Bamako, told AFP Diarra Raky Talla, a vice-president of the National Transition Council (CNT ), which serves as a legislative body.

The Assises of the various communes of Bamako are scheduled for two days from December 22. The process will be completed from December 27 to 30 by a national meeting.

These consultations are supposed to give rise to recommendations for reforms intended to remedy the ills of the country caught in the turmoil since the outbreak of independence and jihadist insurgencies in 2012. But armed groups signatories to a major peace agreement in Mali have denounced Friday their “exclusion” from national meetings.

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Contested consultations

The organization “unilateral by the government excluded the signatory movements” of the so-called Algiers agreement, says a statement from the Permanent Strategic Framework (CSP), a structure bringing together the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA, ex- rebels), the Algiers Platform of Movements of June 14, 2014 (commonly known as the Platform, Loyalists) and the Coordination of Inclusiveness Movements (CMI) also formed of ex-rebels.

“The CSP also notes the exclusion and failure to take into account important players in Malian political life,” the statement announced.

The Algiers accord, signed in 2015 by an alliance of Tuareg and Arab nationalist rebel groups, pro-government armed groups and the Malian government, is considered crucial to stabilize the Sahelian country.

Threat of new sanctions

National consultations open the day before a summit of the Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The ECOWAS, which suspended Mali from its decision-making bodies and imposed individual sanctions on members of the transitional authorities as well as their entourage, must once again examine the political situation in the country. She brandished at a previous summit the threat of additional sanctions in the absence of an electoral calendar.

Mali was the scene of two military coups d’état in less than a year in August 2020 and May 2021. The soldiers had engaged under pressure from the ECOWAS, mediator, and part of the international community , to hand over power to civilians after presidential and legislative elections scheduled for February 2022.

But the authorities finally notified ECOWAS that they were unable to meet the agreed schedule.

The Prime Minister installed by the junta, Choguel Kokalla Maïga, insists on the prior holding of the Assizes. The government invokes the persistent insecurity in this poor and landlocked country, delivered since 2012 to the actions of groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization, and to the violence of all kinds perpetrated by self-proclaimed self-defense militias and bandits. The regular forces are themselves accused of abuses.

With AFP