The eyes of the Malian authorities of the transition are on Accra (Ghana) where a double summit is being held this Sunday, January 9, on their draft timetable transmitted at the end of December to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS ). Even if a new schedule of shorter duration would have reached the president of the instance, according to our sources.
From his palace in Bamako and on the plane to Accra where two summits devoted to Mali are being held, Assimi Goïta, the Malian president of the transition and his Minister Abdoulaye Diop of Foreign Affairs know: their country will again be the target of sanctions from the two main West African organizations of which he is a member.
Indeed, announced since January 2 by the ECOWAS commission, the meeting of heads of state will be preceded by a summit of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (Uemoa) – from which Mali had been suspended because of political developments. According to information, financial sanctions could be taken this Sunday against Bamako, emissaries from the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), the country’s main current source of funding, having taken their neighborhoods in the capital of Ghana since Saturday to “receive instructions,” said a source. All the heads of state of the Union having the CFA franc in common in West Africa will have to take part in person in this summit convened by the Burkinabé Roch Marc Christian Kaboré, its president in office, with the exception of Assimi Goïta.
Pending these meetings and to visibly dilute the content of the sanctions, the Malian transitional president also dispatched two of his ministers to his ECOWAS counterparts in Accra. These emissaries, including Abdoulaye Diop, are supposed to transmit a new timetable after the unfavorable outcry caused by the initial timetable – which provides for presidential elections in December 2026 – in the sub-region and internally. Sources now speak of a period of less than three years before the polls are held and power transferred to civilians held by the West African regional organization. The objective being, among other things, to “maintain dialogue and good cooperation with ECOWAS”, according to the diplomat at the heart of Assimi Goïta’s system.
As a reminder, the two institutions had already taken economic and diplomatic sanctions against Mali, where two coups d’état were carried out in the space of nine months by the military junta in power. In the same vein, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank had suspended their cooperation before a new recovery with the Sahel country.
