Various opposition parties and associations in Mali have rejected the draft of a new Constitution proposed by the leader of the military junta, Assimi Goita, in the framework of the controversial transition process in the African country.
One of those who has pronounced itself on the matter has been the Malian opposition party National Convention for Solidarity in Africa, led by former Prime Minister Soumana Sako, who has affirmed this Thursday his rejection of the project.
In a statement reported by the Maliweb news portal, the party said that the «regime resulting» from the military coups of August 2020 and May 2021 do not give legitimacy to the junta to draw up a new Constitution in the name of the Malian people.
Two days ago, the movement led by the influential imam Mahmud Dicko, who heads the Coordination of Movements, Associations and Sympathizers (CMAS), made a similar pronouncement on the matter, assuring that the junta has no competence to carry out the process.
«We consider that it is not a new Constitution that can help Mali to get out of the multidimensional crisis it has been experiencing for many years,» the grouping stressed in a communiqué signed on January 9, as reported by the Malijet news portal.
The text presented underlines the unity of the Malian State, as well as its secular character. It also proposes the creation of a High Council of the Nation, which would be equivalent to a Senate, and reinforces the figure of the president.
The country’s Minister of Territorial Administration, Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, who is also Mali’s interim Prime Minister and spokesman for the junta, invited opposition leaders to a meeting on Thursday, which, however, was also rejected.
«The constitution is sacred. To revise it requires an elected President of the Republic and an elected Assembly. We will boycott the meeting,» the Jigiya Kura alliance said in a statement, according to Radio France Internationale.
Goita led the uprising against the then Malian president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in August 2020, and subsequently led a second coup d’état in May 2021 against the transitional authorities — at which time he overthrew the president and the prime minister, Bah Ndaw and Moctar Ouane — and seized power.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
