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The transitional authorities revealed on Wednesday the creation of a consultation mechanism. Its objective: the definition of a “consensual electoral timetable”, with a view to ending the crisis and lifting the sanctions currently imposed by ECOWAS in Mali. But this mechanism elicits rather mixed reactions.
The authorities resulting from the coups of August 2020 and May 2021 have requested an extension of the four-year transition period, deemed inadmissible by the West African organization. Since then, the standoff has been engaged, but the dialogue is not closed, and it is in this logic of dialogue that Bamako has set up this mechanism. But the latter, however, arouses rather mixed reactions from the actors involved, starting with ECOWAS itself, which published a press release.
Soberly, ECOWAS ” take note of the press release released by the Malian transitional government, and tackled the initiative twice: first by recalling that “ technical consultation are already underway between Mali and the Local Transition Monitoring Committee – already made up of ECOWAS, the African Union, the UN Mission in the country as well as Ghana and Nigeria. A way of indicating that this mechanism was perhaps not necessary. Then, by specifying that the Ministerial Working Group, the second body of the mechanism announced by Bamako, “ has not been implemented to date. »
A source who participated in the first meeting of the “Expanded Working Group” is optimistic, but without enthusiasm: “ it’s an initiative that is being put in place, you have to allow a little time. »
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Several sources – Malian or international, directly involved or informed observers – express their doubts more clearly and fear that the authorities will seek, with this mechanism, to show a facade of goodwill, intended to deceive. Others, on the contrary, want to believe in what they consider to be a new and serious dynamic for a way out of the crisis.
During the first meeting, last Tuesday, the Malian Minister of Territorial Administration, Colonel Abdoulaye Maïga, affirmed his desire to unblock the situation “ very quickly », « to get out of an unfortunate situation that benefits neither the people of Mali nor the peoples of ECOWAS “, according to comments reported by the state newspaper Rise.
No date was indicated to the participants for the next meeting.
