The heads of state and government of the West African Community of States (ECOWAS) meeting at an extraordinary regional summit in Ghana, decided, Sunday, May 30, to suspend Mali from their common institutions in response to a double military coup, which they condemned while avoiding other sanctions.

The presidents of the 15 member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) "strongly condemn the recent coup" and, "after long discussions (...) decide to suspend Mali ECOWAS institutions ", says the final communiqué of this summit in Accra.

The bloc demanded that the Malian junta abide by its commitment to organize a presidential election next February, after an 18-month transition period and recalled the urgent need for the Malian authorities to appoint a new interim civilian prime minister . 

A transition limited to 18 months

They are calling for the "immediate" appointment of a "new" prime minister from civil society. They "demand" the "immediate" release of the former president and transitional prime minister, arrested Monday and removed from power before Colonel Assimi Goïta is declared president on Friday. The two former leaders have returned home, but are under house arrest, says ECOWAS.

It reaffirms the need for the transition opened after the first coup d'état in August 2020, and supposed to bring civilians back to power, to be limited to 18 months. "The ECOWAS suspension takes effect immediately until the deadline for at the end of February 2022, when they are supposed to pass the baton to a democratically elected government, "said Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Ghana's foreign minister. 

However, ECOWAS remained silent on the designation of Colonel Goïta as president.

It does not call for the reinstatement of the former president and prime minister in their functions.

After the August 2020 putsch, she demanded and obtained the appointment of a civilian president and a transitional prime minister.

She "reiterates (...) that the head of the transition, the vice-president and the prime minister of the transition must not under any circumstances be a candidate for the future presidential election," she said not without ambiguity.

Assimi Goïta was vice-president until Friday.

Assimi Goïta went to Accra on Saturday where ECOWAS said it was inviting him for "consultations" but AFP journalists did not see him in the summit room on Sunday.

Instability

The ECOWAS had to decide the thorny question of their response to the second putsch by the Malian military in nine months at the head of this crucial country for the stability of the Sahel in the face of the jihadist spread.

On Monday, the former special forces battalion commander arrested President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane, civil guarantors of the transition, who then resigned, according to the official version.

The Constitutional Court declared Colonel Assimi Goïta transitional president on Friday, completing the May 24 coup.

With the appointment of Colonel Goïta, the Malian Constitutional Court formalized a fait accompli that these partners had tried to oppose after the coup of August 2020.

Assimi Goïta and a group of colonels then overthrew President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta but, under international pressure, had accepted the appointment of a civilian president and prime minister to lead this country caught in a turmoil with multiple security dimensions, economic and political, since the outbreak of independence and jihadist rebellions in 2012 in the north.

Since then, violence has spread to the center of the country and to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.

An attack blamed on jihadists by a security official in the south near the Ivorian and Guinean borders left five dead on Sunday and reinforced fears of contamination of relatively untouched areas.

Like Mali's other partners, ECOWAS has expressed its "deep concerns" at the recent political upheavals in such a context.

Threat of French withdrawal 

After the 2020 coup, the ECOWAS suspended Mali from all its decision-making bodies, closed the borders of its member states and stopped financial and commercial exchanges with the country, with the exception of basic necessities, causing a 30% drop in the country's imports.

She had lifted the sanctions when the junta appeared to bow to her demands.

An ECOWAS mission dispatched during the week to Mali had raised the possibility of new sanctions.

France and the United States, militarily engaged in the Sahel, brandished the threat.

In an interview published the same day by the Journal du dimanche, President Emmanuel Macron threatened with the withdrawal of 5,100 French soldiers from Operation Barkhane, declaring that he did not want to stay "alongside a country where there is no has more democratic legitimacy or transition ".

With AFP and Reuters

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