Bah Ndaw, a retired colonel who has been designated Mali’s interim president following last month’s coup, made his first public appearance on Thursday, meeting a regional mediator, AFP reporters saw.

Ndaw, 70, met former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, in Bamako on a mission for the 15-nation bloc ECOWAS, on the eve of his swearing-in.

Ndaw’s appointment was announced on Monday by Colonel Assimi Goita, who heads a junta of young military officers who seized power on August 18, ousting elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Goita himself will serve as vice president, under the announcement.

The interim president will rule for a maximum of 18 months before staging nationwide elections.

ECOWAS — the Economic Community of West African States — slapped sanctions on Mali on August 20 to push for swift restoration of civilian government, including the appointment of civilians as interim president and prime minister.

The bloc may announce on Friday whether the plan meets criteria for easing sanctions, Jonathan said on Thursday.

An official close to the sanctions discussion, who declined to be named, said that “there are still consultations going on”.

Jonathan was due to meet other Malian officials on Thursday, besides Ndaw, including prominent figures whom the military detained after last month’s coup.

ECOWAS has demanded the release of all detainees. Keita was released, but former prime minister Boubou Cisse, among other officials, remains in detention.

Mali’s neighbours have taken a hard line with the junta, fearful that the fragile nation of some 19 million people could spiral into chaos.

Swathes of the vast country already lie outside of government control, due to a lethal jihadist insurgency that first emerged in 2012. It has also inflamed ethnic tensions.

Current restrictions include border closures and a ban on commercial trade and financial flows but not on basic necessities, drugs, equipment to fight coronavirus, fuel or electricity.

Source: AFP

Ivory Coast ex-rebel leader and former premier Guillaume Soro, whose bid for the presidency has been invalidated by a court, insisted Thursday his candidacy was “irrevocable” even as he attacked the October 31 elections as a scheme to enshrine 78-year-old Alassane Ouattara as head of state.

“My candidacy is firm, unchangeable and irrevocable,” Soro told journalists in Paris, adding his country was “on the brink” since President Alassane Ouattara’s decision to seek a third term in office.

Soro urged the country’s opposition parties to unite against Ouattara even as he insisted that the October 31 presidential poll “does not make any sense” as it was designed to “endorse the institutional state coup d’etat of Alassane Ouattara”.

Soro, who served as prime minister from 2007 to 2012, urged Ivory Coast opposition leaders to unite and to “seize (regional bloc) ECOWAS in order to obtain transparent elections”.

And he insisted that on October 31, “there will be no election”, without further explanation.

Ivory Coast’s top court rejected 40 presidential election candidates, validating the contested bid of the incumbent head of state but sidelining his predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo and Soro, a one-time Ouattara ally.

On Tuesday the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights called on the Ivorian authorities to allow Soro to contest the vote.

Tensions are running high ahead of the poll in the West African state where more than 3,000 people died in post-election violence in 2010-11.

This week, protests broke out in several cities including in southeastern Bonoua, the hometown of Gbagbo’s wife Simone, where about 300 people, mainly youngsters, marched against Ouattara’s candidacy in defiance of a ban on demonstrations.

Ouattara had said in March that he would not seek a third term but made a U-turn just four months later when his preferred successor, prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, died of a heart attack.

The argument behind his bid pivots on modifications to the constitution in 2016. Supporters say this has reset the two-term limits to zero, entitling him to run again.

Violent protests against Ouattara’s candidacy left around 15 dead last month, reviving memories of the post-election bloodshed nearly a decade ago.

(AFP)

Former Ivorian rebel leader and ex-prime minister Guillaume Soro, who has been barred from contesting an upcoming presidential election, should be allowed to run, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights said Tuesday.

The court — established by members of the African Union in 2004 — issued a provisional ruling calling on Ivory Coast to “take all necessary measures to immediately remove all obstacles” preventing Soro from competing in the October 31 vote.

However, the ruling is likely to have limited impact, as Ivory Coast withdrew its recognition of the court’s jurisdiction in April this year.

(AFP)

Tensions mounted on Saturday between Mali’s military junta and the country’s longtime political opposition after the coup leaders failed to invite prominent opposition figures to a planned forum on the country’s political future.

The meeting ultimately was cancelled and the junta leadership instead met with imam Mahmoud Dicko, an opposition leader who on Friday urged the junta to speed up the transition to civilian rule so the West African country could avoid further crushing financial sanctions.

“I ask them to be part of the solution and not another problem,” he said.

Only a week earlier, the opposition coalition known as M5-RFP that includes Dicko had publicly backed the coup, with thousands of their supporters taking to the streets after the junta’s overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. M5-RFP had led several months of demonstrations calling for his resignation three years before his final term was due to end.

In a statement late Friday, one M5-RFP leader said the alliance regretted not being invited to take part in Saturday’s planned discussions between the junta and various political actors.

“The M5-RFP is and remains a major player in this desired change and must be at the forefront in determining the structure of the transition,” Choguel Maiga said.

The path back to democracy has been a stumbling point with West African heads of state, who on Friday urged the junta to restore civilian rule within a year. But the junta has proposed a three-year timeline. That has led to the unraveling of talks and more threats of sanctions.

The regional bloc known as ECOWAS already has cut financial flows to Mali, and neighboring countries have closed their borders in a bid to step up pressure on the coup leaders.

The international community has expressed alarm over the coup, fearing that the political vacuum could allow Islamic extremists to expand their reach. A similar coup in 2012 led to the militants overtaking major towns in the north where they implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, amputating the hands of those charged with theft.

A French-led military operation in 2013 ousted the extremists from power but the Malian military and its partners have faced an insurgency ever since.

There are concerns that the new political upheaval could erode what gains have been made in the fight to stabilize Mali.

Source: AP

West African countries on Friday demanded an immediate civilian transition in Mali and elections within 12 months as they considered sanctions after rebel troops toppled the country’s president and seized power.

The demands were spelt out after the new junta released ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, seized in the August 18 coup, but also apparently granted their new chief the powers of head of state.

The coup shocked Mali’s West African neighbours and ally France, heightening worries over instability in a country already struggling with an Islamist insurgency, ethnic violence and economic stagnation.

After a video summit, the 15-nation Economic Community of West Africa State called on the junta “to initiate a civil transition immediately” and the “rapid establishment of a government to (…) prepare the legislative and presidential elections within 12 months.”

In a closing statement, Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, who also chairs ECOWAS, said sanctions would be “gradually lifted depending on the implementation” of the bloc’s requests.

“Staging coups is a serious sickness for a country,” he said in earlier remarks. “To cure them, there’s only one prescription: sanctions.”

ECOWAS slapped sanctions on Mali after the August coup, including a closure of borders and ban on trade and financial flows.

It demanded the release of Keita and other detained leaders and insisted on a swift return to civilian rule.

Keita, 75, was elected in 2013 as a unifying figure in a fractured country and was returned in 2018 for a second five-year term.

But his popularity crashed as he failed to counter the country’s raging jihadist insurgency and brake Mali’s downward economic spiral.

After an escalating series of mass protests, young army officers mutinied on August 18, seizing Keita and other leaders and declaring they now governed the country.

They have called the junta the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), led by a 37-year-old colonel, Assimi Goita.

Friday’s video summit came after a three-day ECOWAS visit foundered over a timetable for civilian transition, and the junta’s announcement on the eve of the conference that Keita had been freed.

Issoufou said Keita had told the ECOWAS envoys “that he resigned quite freely, convinced that this decision was necessary for peace and stability in Mali.”

Handover issue

Within hours of taking control, the junta promised to enact a political transition and stage elections within a “reasonable time.”

According to the chief ECOWAS envoy, former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, the coup leaders wanted a three-year handover period.

This was rejected by the ECOWAS team, which called for an interim government, “headed by a civilian or retired military officer, to last for six or nine months, and maximum of 12 calendar months,” Jonathan said on Wednesday.

ECOWAS on Friday said that the person overseeing the handover should be “an individual, civilian, recognised… for their intellectual and moral standing” and that there should be a “civilian prime minister.”

“No military structure should be above the transition president,” it said.

But a new document posted on Mali’s Official Journal, a gazette which publishes new laws and regulations, invests the head of the CNSP with the powers of the head of state.

Named “Basic Act N°001/CNSP,” the document was posted online on Thursday.

The CNSP “designates a president who assures the duty of the head of state… embodying national unity… and guaranteeing national independence, territorial integrity… (and) respect for international agreements,” it says.

This individual appoints senior civil servants and military and “accredits” foreign ambassadors, according to the document. AFP has asked the junta’s spokesman to confirm its authenticity.

Jihadist warning

In other remarks, Issoufou lashed the Malian military for launching the coup when the country was in the throes of an eight-year-old jihadist insurgency.

Thousands of lives have been lost, hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes and swathes of the country have been abandoned to armed Islamists by the state.

The junta “is refusing to return to the barracks at a time when, more than ever, the army is required to focus on its traditional mission,” Issoufou said.

He warned that the jihadists sought to “exploit the current institutional void” — a scenario that happened after Mali’s last coup in 2008.

(AFP)

Mali’s new military rulers said Thursday that former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was detained during the country’s coup on August 18, had been freed.

The announcement came on the eve of a summit by Mali’s neighbours, who are to decide whether to ratchet up pressure on the fledgling junta.

Keita’s ousting by rebel troops sent shockwaves through the region and in France, which sees Mali as a linchpin in its campaign against jihadism in the Sahel, where more than 5,000 French troops are based.

“President IBK is free in his movements, he’s at home,” a spokesman for the junta, Djibrila Maiga, told AFP, referring to Keita by his initials, as many Malians do.

The junta, calling itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), said on Facebook it was “informing public and international opinion that former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has been released and is currently in his residence”.

A Keita relative, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 75-year-old former leader had returned overnight to his house in the Sebenikoro district of the capital Bamako.

The source did not say whether he was still subject to any restrictions.

Keita, prime minister Boubou Cisse and other senior officials were seized by young officers who mutinied at a base near Bamako.

In the early hours of August 19, Keita appeared on national TV to announce his resignation, saying he had had no other choice, and wanted to avoid “bloodshed”.

His release — and other leaders — is a key demand of Mali’s neighbours, its ally France and international organisations, including the African Union and European Union.

Former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, heading a team from the regional bloc ECOWAS, was given access to Keita last Saturday, and said he seemed “very fine.”

The announcement Thursday came on the eve of a virtual summit by the 15-nation ECOWAS — the Economic Community of West African States — which has imposed sanctions against Mali for the coup.

Those measures include a closure of borders and a ban on trade that threaten to worsen Mali’s already severe social and economic troubles.

Jonathan’s three-day mission to Bamako foundered on the question of the transition to civilian rule.

The junta have promised to enact a political transition and stage elections within a “reasonable time” but not spelt out details.

Discussing progress with Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, Jonathan said the coup leaders wanted to stay in power for a three-year transition period, an offer rejected by the mediators, according to a statement from the presidency.

“We also told them that what would be acceptable to ECOWAS was an Interim Government, headed by a civilian or retired military officer, to last for six or nine months, and maximum of 12 calendar months,” Jonathan was quoted as saying in the presidency statement late Wednesday.

Jihadist worries

Keita was elected in 2013 as a unifying figure in a fractured country and was returned in 2018 for a second five-year term.

But his popularity plummeted as he failed to counter a bloody jihadist campaign that has claimed thousands of lives and driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, and to reverse the country’s downward economic spiral.

In a visit to the Estonian capital of Tallinn on Thursday, the head of the French armed forces, Francois Lecointre, said, “Our wish is to maintain the Malian army’s commitment in the fight against armed terrorist groups.”

He pointed to a campaign launched earlier this year to regain control over the strategic “three-border” zone, where the frontiers of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso come together.

“We are going to see if the Malian armed forces are able to maintain the momentum… we have told them that this appears essential to us,” said Lecointre.

“The corps commanders are still there, the area commanders are still there, these aren’t people who took part in the coup, and so we are continuing to cooperate with them,” he said.

(AFP)

Supporters of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who lives in exile in Brussels after losing a civil war in 2011, said Wednesday that they would file a candidacy in his name for October’s election. The announcement comes a day after an Ivorian court confirmed the decision to strike off the ex-leader from the electoral list due to a 20-year prison sentence.

A pro-Gbagbo coalition called Together for Democracy and Sovereignty said in a statement “it will submit president Laurent Gbagbo’s candidacy, in line with scheduled procedures”.

But a day earlier, a court in Ivory Coast confirmed the decision of the country’s electoral commission to strike off Gbagbo from the electoral list, his lawyer told AFP Tuesday. “It’s a definitive no,” Claude Mentenon told AFP, adding that there was no further legal recourse inside Ivory Coast.

Election officials had already rejected appeals by Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to compete in the October 31 presidential election, in which the incumbent Alassane Ouattara is running for re-election.

Any candidate convicted of crime automatically struck from list

President of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, said back in August, when the revised electoral list was revealed, that anyone convicted of a crime would be struck from the list of candidates.

Four contenders in all were barred from standing in the election on those grounds.

The world’s top cocoa grower remains scarred by a brief civil war that erupted after 2010 elections, when Gbagbo, then president, refused to cede to the victor, Ouattara. Months of ensuing violence claimed around 3,000 lives.

Gbagbo, who is currently living in Belgium, was freed conditionally by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity. The prosecution has appealed that ruling.

But he was sentenced in absentia to a 20-year term last November for the “looting” of the local branch of the Central Bank of the West African States (BCEAO) during the post-election crisis.

In theory at least, he could be jailed on his return, which makes any return to Ivory Coast a sensitive political issue three months before the presidential election.

The 2020 presidential elections were already set to be tense, after years of political turbulence.

Violence that followed Ouattara’s announcement that he is seeking a third term has claimed at least eight lives in August.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The European Union has suspended its training missions in Mali after the military coup this month that removed President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita from power, EU officials said on Wednesday.

The two missions training Mali’s army and police as part of international efforts to stabilize Mali and extend the state’s authority are frozen because they were designed to support “the legitimate national authorities,” one EU official said.

Officials said the suspension was temporary. West African mediators and Mali’s coup leaders are discussing the possibility of a transitional government, which could allow the EU to eventually resume training in partnership with the United Nations.

 The coup has raised the prospects of further political turmoil in Mali which, like other countries in the region, is facing an expanding threat from Islamist militants.

 EU defense ministers meeting in Berlin on Wednesday will discuss the situation in Mali, the officials said.

Drawn up in late 2012 to help Mali’s army regain control of the country after France drove out militants in the north, the EU military mission (EUTM Mali) has more than 600 soldiers from 28 European countries including EU and non-member states.

 Its headquarters in Mali’s capital Bamako was targeted by militants in 2016, although no personnel were hurt.

 The EU agreed in 2014 an additional civilian mission (EUCAP Sahel Mali), sending experts to give advice and training to the internal security forces in Mali, the police, Gendarmerie and National Guard.

 EU training will continue in neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso, officials said.

(Source: Agencies)

The international community increased pressure on the military junta that has seized power in Mali, as the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) suspended the nation from its membership Tuesday.

Its leadership agreed the move at an extraordinary session held via videoconference, while adding that it would maintain any cooperation that would help the civilian population and a transition to democracy.

The decision came a day after envoys from the West African bloc ECOWAS and the new military rulers said they had failed to agree on a timetable to return Mali to democratic rule.

The OIF also called for the liberation of the ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who stepped down from power last week after the military revolt, saying he wanted to avoid bloodshed.

And they called for the establishment, as soon as possible, of “a transition government led by an civilian authority”. The OIF said it would be sending a high-delegation to Mali in the coming days.

The international community has already condemned the August 18 coup and ECOWAS has suspended Mali from its ranks.

ECOWAS has so far taken the lead in the international community in trying to negotiate a timetable for a return to civilian rule with the country’s new military leaders.

But both sides said Monday they had failed to reach agreement — and also that Keita no longer wanted to be restored to be power, which had been one of the initial demands made by ECOWAS.

Keita was elected in 2013 after running a campaign in which he pitched himself as a unifying force in a fractured country.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2018 but failed to make headway against the jihadists, and the ethnic unrest they ignited in the centre of the country further damaged an already sickly economy.

An outcry over the results of long-delayed legislative elections in April cemented his unpopular reputation, and in June a protest movement was born aimed at forcing him to resign.

Source: AFP

West African envoys resumed talks with Mali’s new military rulers on Monday as the junta denied it had decided on a three-year blueprint for restoring civilian rule.

Colonel Ismael Wague, spokesman for the rebel officers who seized power last Tuesday, insisted that the transition remained undecided as the third day of talks with the regional bloc ECOWAS got underway.

“I want to make clear at this stage of discussions with the ECOWAS mediation team that nothing has been decided,” he said at the defence ministry in Bamako.

“At no point have we talked about military-majority government,” he said.

“Any decision relating to the scale of the transition, the transition president, the formation of the government will be done among Malians” and be followed by “mass consultation,” he said.

ECOWAS flew a high-level mission to Bamako on Saturday led by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, four days after mutinying troops seized power and detained 75-year-old President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The coup sent shockwaves among Mali’s neighbours, which fear that the country – already beset by a jihadist insurgency and moribund economy – could spiral into chaos.

A source in the visiting delegation on Sunday said the junta “has affirmed that it wants a three-year transition to review the foundations of the Malian state. This transition will be directed by a body led by a soldier, who will also be head of state.

“The government will also be predominantly composed of soldiers” under the proposal, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Additionally, a junta official confirmed to AFP that “the three-year transition would have a military president and a government mostly composed of soldiers.”

ECOWAS reaction

This timeframe contrasts with the junta’s vow, within hours of taking over on August 18, that elections would be held within a “reasonable” timeframe.

Many Malians took to social media on Monday to attack the transition scheme.

It also compares starkly with demands by the 15-nation ECOWAS – the Economic Community of West African States – for the “immediate return of constitutional order.”

The bloc’s leaders are to confer in a virtual summit on Wednesday as to how to proceed, mindful of Mali’s last coup in 2012, which led to a regional revolt that metastasised into a jihadist insurgency.

They have already decided to close Mali’s borders and issued threats to impose sanctions against the coup leaders.

The bloc has already intervened in several crises in West Africa, including The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Keita was elected in 2013 after running a campaign in which he pitched himself as a unifying force in a fractured country.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2018 but failed to make headway against the jihadists, and the ethnic unrest they ignited in the centre of the country further damaged an already sickly economy.

An outcry over the results of long-delayed legislative elections in April cemented his unpopular reputation, and in June a protest movement was born aimed at forcing him to resign.

ECOWAS has stood by Keita and called for him to be restored to office, although this demand has been eclipsed since the start of the talks by the issue of his detention.

Jonathan met Keita on Saturday and said he seemed “very fine”.

The ECOWAS and junta sources said on Monday that Mali’s new rulers had agreed to free the ousted president and that he would be able to return to his home in Bamako.

The coup leaders say they are holding 17 leaders at a barracks about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city after releasing two others last week.

Source: AFP