June 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Independent Authority for the Management of Elections in Mali has reported this Friday that 97 percent of voters have been in favor of applying changes to the current Constitution, written more than three decades ago, after a referendum was held constitution last Sunday.
The president of the organization, Moustapha Cissé, has indicated in a press conference that the participation rate has stood at 39.4 percent, with more than 3.2 million votes deposited in the polls, the portal of news to Bamako.
The voters had to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ last Sunday to the following question: “Do you approve the Constitution project?” To do this, they had to choose a white card if they agreed and a red one if they did not accept future constitutional changes.
The process has not been exempt from controversy, since the political opposition and the signatories of the 2015 peace agreement have boycotted the procedures of the commission created to organize the transition process -among whose decisions is the modification of the Constitution- by demanding the rapid organization of elections to establish a new authority with popular legitimacy.
The vote was also carried out after months of delays due to logistical problems and marks the starting signal to begin a transition that will culminate in presidential elections in February 2024, after years of postponement despite international pressure for the military junta returns power to a civilian government.
The constitutional referendum on Sunday called by the junta is therefore intended to underpin a transition promised since the coup that overthrew the then president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, in August 2020.
