Mali’s military junta sets June 18 as the date for the constitutional referendum

May 5. (EUROPE PRESS) –

Mali’s military junta announced this Friday that the referendum on the new Constitution, drafted after the coups in August 2020 and May 2021, will finally take place on June 18, after several delays that have also caused the postponement of the elections promised by the transitional president, Assimi Goita.

The spokesman for the Malian transition government, Abdoulaye Maiga, read the decree during a broadcast on the ORTM state television channel and specified that the decree has been signed by Maiga and that it is “in line with the Constitution and the transition letter “.

Thus, he has stated that the vote “has been called on Sunday, June 18, 2023 throughout the national territory and the diplomatic and consular missions of Mali to rule on the draft Constitution”, while detailing that the members of the security forces “will vote early on June 11, in line with electoral law.”

Maiga stressed that “voters will have to answer yes or no to the following question: Do you approve the Constitution project?” In addition, he has detailed that “the white cards mean ‘yes’ and the red cards are for ‘no'”. “The electoral campaign for the constitutional referendum will open on June 2 and close on Friday, June 16,” she has settled.

The draft of the new Magna Carta reinforces the signature means the powers of the president and includes that it is the head of state, and not the Government, which “determines the nation’s policy” and appoints the prime minister and ministers, at the same time who has the authority to terminate their functions.

Thus, it maintains the political system included in the 1992 Constitution, although it expands the powers of the president, who will be elected by direct universal suffrage and will also have more powers at the legislative level.

In this sense, it will be able to present projects to Parliament and could submit to a referendum any matter of “national interest” or project related to “the organization of State institutions” after a prior assessment by the Constitutional Court.

The president would also have powers to dissolve Parliament, while he will have the authority to appoint members of the civil and military administration, even appearing as “guarantor of the independence of the judicial apparatus”, for which he is also president of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary.

The draft also contemplates a limit to the number of mandates of the president and fixes in only one the mandates of the members of the Constitutional Court. In addition, a second chamber will be created in Parliament, the Senate, while local authorities will be decentralized.

After the coup d’état in August 2020, which overthrew the then president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the military junta approved a transition letter that contemplated a transition period of 18 months –later extended to two years– to carry out institutional reforms and approve a new Constitution with a view to holding elections.

Goita appointed by decree a commission in charge of preparing the Magna Carta project that finally presented the draft at the end of February, which caused the vote, scheduled for March 29, to be postponed to give the electoral commission time to carry out make the necessary preparations.

Faced with delays in the open transition in 2020, the junta announced a new two-year transition plan in April 2022, amid criticism from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which has imposed harsh sanctions against Bamako for the delays in holding elections.

Mali, like other countries in the Sahel, has been registering an increasing number of jihadist attacks in recent years, carried out both by the Al Qaeda affiliate in the region and by the Islamic State, which has also increased intercommunal violence. and caused the displacement of tens of thousands of people.