Panafrican News Agency

Mali: Military junta to appoint College that will choose transitional president

Bamako, Mali (PANA) - The spokesman for the National Council for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), the military junta that took power in Mali, Colonel Major Ismaël Wagué, announced on Wednesday in Bamako that the CNSP has begun the process of constituting the College which is to appoint the President and Prime Minister of the Transition in Mali.

Presenting to the press the conclusions of the mini-summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Accra, Ghana, in which the President of the CNSP, Colonel Assimi Goita, took part, on Tuesday, Colonel-Major Wagué said that the CNSP will respect any decision of the College, which is about to be constituted to appoint the heads of the interim administration.

The College, he said, will be composed of military, civil society representatives and other bodies in the nation.

By initiating the process of setting up the College to designate the leaders of the transition, just a few hours after the meeting in the Ghanaian capital, the CNSP wants, in accordance with the wishes of the heads of state of the sub-region, to quickly put in place a president and a prime minister to lead the transition.

The Accra summit reiterated its recommendation to the military junta to quickly put in place a transitional president and a prime minister, all civilians.

At the ECOWAS summit held on September 9 in Niamey, Niger, ECOWAS demanded that the junta establish civilian rule by September 15. 

However, it also did not rule out the idea of a CNSP concession if the choice of a military force were to further complicate the situation in Mali. In any case, the CNSP is committed to respecting the decisions of the College, which, according to Ismaël Wagué, "will integrate into its function both the conclusions of the national consultation and the position of the international community.

On the other hand, the functions of vice-president and president of the National Transition Council, which is considered the legislative body, will be assumed by the military, explained Colonel Major Wagué.

On Tuesday, the head of the CNSP made the trip to Accra to present the conclusions of the national consultation and plead for the lifting or easing of sanctions taken by the community organization against Mali.

At the end of the discussions, the CNSP did not receive a favourable response. The West African leaders made the lifting of sanctions conditional on the implementation of a civil transition.

"They wanted us to give a favourable opinion on this request, as of today, so that we could leave each other on an agreement with a communiqué at the end," said the senior officer, adding: "we told them that we did not have this mandate".

However, the junta's spokesman considered that the trip to Accra was not a failure, because for him, "the invitation of the president of the CNSP to this mini-summit is a form of recognition of his status as head of state".

-0- PANA GT/IS/MTA/VAO 17Sept2020