Bamako to host national consultations on transition in Mali - military junta
Bamako, Mali (PANA) - Colonel Ismael Wagué, spokesperson for the National Council for the People’s Salvation, announced here Friday national consultations on the political transition in Mali would be held from 10-12 September.
As a prelude to those talks, workshops for the validation of the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the national consultations will be held in Bamako and the other regions.
During the consultations, the action plan, architecture, organs and the charter of the transition will be outlined, Wagué added.
The junta spokesman said the nationwide talks that would bring together regional and national delegates, and those of the Diaspora would be placed under the presidency of the CNSP chairman, Colonel Assimi Goïta.
The decision to validate the ToR during the preliminary meeting expresses the will of the new authorities to better prepare for the national consultations and come out with a well-prepared working document, Col. Wagué said.
"The terms of reference are indispensable to succeed in orderly talks that can result in consensual conclusions, since it is in light with the working document that participants can prepare themselves in order to formulate pertinent recommendations," he said.
Those talks are likely to pave the way for the return to normal constitutional order in Mali, after the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), during an extraordinary summit of heads of state through videoconferencing, recommended a one-year transition with a civilian president and prime minister, and demanded the return of soldiers to their barracks.
Following the takeover of power by the national army on 18 August, ECOWAS took a series of sanctions against Mali.
These were the closure of all borders between member-states and the country, suspension of commercial and financial transactions with Mali, and its suspension from all the organisation’s bodies.
-0- PANA GT/JSG/SOC/MSA/RA 4Sept2020
