Mali’s interim government on Thursday announced the presidential and parliamentary elections in the country will be held in February next year, reported Africa News.
Mali’s Minister for Territorial Administration Abdoulaye Maiga told journalists in Bamako that the first round of voting will take place on February 27, 2022. If in case no candidate wins over 50% of the first-round vote then the second round of voting will be held on March 20, 2022.
Last year in August, the military ousted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, after a mounting wave of protests against his handling of Mali’s conflict.
International partners and West African regional leaders have continued to pressurize and force the military junta that ousted Keita to agree to an 18-month civilian-led transition.
Maiga said the scheduled election date is completely in line with the interim government’s promise of an 18-month transition for returning to an elected government. He said a referendum on a long-promised overhaul of the country’s constitution will take place on October 31, 2021, with local and regional elections scheduled to take place on December 26.
The date set for the vote “takes into account the necessary time to carry out consultations, to draw up the draft constitution, to have it adopted by the National Transition Council (CNT) and finally have it adopted by referendum”, Maiga added.
The CNT is Mali’s post-coup legislative body. In February, the interim Prime Minister, Moctar Ouane, had assured CNT that every means will be deployed to organize free and transparent elections within the agreed timescale.
Mali was plunged into political chaos after Keïta was overthrown in a military coup last year August. The coup worsened the West African country’s already fragile situation. Mali has been plagued by violence since 2012 when Islamist militant groups took over a Tuareg separatist rebellion in the country’s north.
