PRETORIA (TASS): The Emergency Summit of the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS) adopted on Sunday a new package of sanctions against Mali, the country’s military leadership and government. This was reported by Agence France-Presse with reference to one of the participants in the meeting, which took place in the capital of Ghana, Accra.
According to him, the new sanctions are “very harsh”, as the Malian authorities have failed to meet the ECOWAS timeframe for the country’s return to civilian government and are not ready to hold presidential and parliamentary elections in February 2022. The AFP interlocutor noted that the community has now actually returned to the format of the sanctions that were imposed on Mali at the time of the military coup in August 2020. These included the closure of the border with Mali, the imposition of an embargo on financial transactions and trade except for essential goods.
On the agenda of the current ECOWAS summit was the question of a response to a letter from the military authorities of Mali, which proposed a timetable for a transitional period, which should end in December 2026 with a presidential election. The letter also proposed holding a constitutional referendum in January 2024, local elections in April 2025, and parliamentary elections in November 2025, the Malian news portal GJ informed. The letter was drawn up on the basis of the decisions of the National Constituent Assembly that completed its work in December. She proposed extending the current transition period by up to five years.
In the fall of 2020, the Malian authorities made a commitment to ECOWAS to hold presidential elections in February 2022. However, in September, Mali’s interim prime minister Chogel Kokalla Maiga said at UN headquarters that the Malian people would themselves determine the date for the elections through a constituent assembly.
Mali has experienced two military coups since August 2020. During the first, which took place on August 18, 2020, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was ousted from power. A military group led by Colonel Assimi Goita appointed Ba Ndao as interim president of Mali. However, on May 26, 2021, he was ousted by the same group of the military, while by the decision of the Constitutional Court of Mali, Goita was appointed head of state for a transitional period.
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