Mali’s transitional government on Monday kick-started a four-day national forum on returning the country to civilian rule following the August 2020 coup, reported Aljazeera.
The “National Conference on Reform” is being showcased as a chance for the public to foster change, but main groups have already rejected the project and said they will boycott it.
During the opening ceremony on Monday, Mali’s transitional president, Colonel Assimi Goita, said the meeting will make an unflinching assessment of the state of the nation and draw the best lessons from it.
“It will also be your task to make concrete proposals, to devise a solution for ending the crisis,” he said.
The national forum follows local level meetings that were organized in 51 out of 60 areas, the exceptions being in the northern regions of Kidal and Menaka. They were also held in 26 foreign locations for the Malian diaspora.
In August 2020, the Goita-led Malian army toppled the country’s elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, after weeks of street protests over corruption and his handling of a bloody uprising.
Under pressure from France and other neighboring countries, Goita pledged Mali would return to civilian rule in February 2022 after holding presidential and legislative elections. In May this year, he staged a de facto second coup, deposing a transitional administration in which he was vice president. He ordered the arrest of the interim president and then took over the role himself.
Currently, an 18-month political transition, which began on Sept. 15, is underway in the West African country. Mali’s transitional authorities said earlier that the vote scheduled for February 2022 will likely be postponed by a couple of weeks or months due to security concerns.
Earlier this month, Goita told the West African regional bloc ECOWAS that he would provide it with a new election schedule by January 31.
