This announcement comes after an ECOWAS summit and as the sanctions taken to force the junta to propose a timetable for the return of civilians to power.
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The junta that governs Mali gave itself Monday until March 2024 before returning power to civilians. Colonel Assimi Goïta signed, on Monday June 6, a decree setting the duration of the so-called transition period at two years, the start of which was set for March 26. The head of the junta announced it on state television, two days after a summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) which imposed severe measures on Mali on January 9. commercial and financial retaliation to force the junta to present a timetable “acceptable” return of civilians to power.
In August 2020, the junta took over the leadership of this country, which has been plunged into a deep security, political and humanitarian crisis since 2012.
The colonels backed away from their initial pledge to hand over to civilians after elections scheduled for February. At the beginning of the year, they even planned to govern for up to five more years. Before the ECOWAS summit, while the sanctions accentuate the crisis in this poor and landlocked country, they had reduced their claims to 24 months, but without formalizing them as they did on Monday. Until then ECOWAS has agreed to a maximum of 16 months.
With the approach of the summit on Saturday, the continuation of the dialogue between ECOWAS and the junta had raised in Mali some hope in the lifting of sanctions. West African leaders have in fact maintained them while keeping the door open to their lifting: they postponed any decision to a new summit on July 3. But they decided to “continue the dialogue in order to reach an agreement allowing a gradual lifting of the sanctions as the stages of the transition are completed”. There will then be 20 and a half months left until the set deadline of March 2024.