Mali’s Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga on Sunday said Presidential and legislative elections scheduled for early next year could be postponed by months, stressing the need to ensure they are credible before going ahead, reported CGTN Africa.
“The main thing for us is less to hold them on February 27 than to hold elections that will not be contested,” Maiga told AFP in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
He suggested that the elections could be postponed by two weeks, two months, or a few months. He added that a final decision will be taken in October after a meeting of a national forum.
“At the end, we will issue a more detailed agenda,” Maiga said.
The prime minister said it is better to organize peaceful elections that will be recognized by all rather than to organize disputed elections.
Mali’s strongman Colonel Assimi Goita had promised to organize elections in February 2022 that would restore civilian rule in the country following a coup in August last year that ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
After the coup, Mali’s military appointed an interim civilian government tasked with steering back to democratic rule. But, in May, Goita deposed the civilian leaders of the interim government in a second coup and was later declared president himself.
He has pledged to respect the interim government’s February deadline for holding civilian elections in the country, which also set October 31 as a date for holding a constitutional referendum. But, rampant insecurity in Mali, and the scale of the task, have cast doubt on the reform timetable.
The violence-torn country was already struggling with a bloody jihadist conflict before it slid into political turmoil. Swathes of the vast nation have been under jihadists’ control since an insurgency first emerged in the north in 2012, before spreading to the center of the country, as well as neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
