Konimba Sidibé: "ECOWAS or not, we must change the government"
Assimi Goita, president of the National Council for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) in Mali, at the ECOWAS summit in Accra, September 15, 2020. (Illustrative photo) Nipah Dennis / AFP
Text by: David Baché
2 mins
Mali and ECOWAS still have a month, before the next summit of the regional organization, to agree on the duration of the continuation of the transition and the deadline for future elections.
This weekend, ECOWAS postponed until July 3 any decision on a possible relaxation of the sanctions that have hit the country since the beginning of January.
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The ECOWAS decision is a great disappointment for Malians who hoped that these sanctions could already be lifted.
Former minister, president of the Modec party, Konimba Sidibé is one of the founders of M5, the movement of Choguel Maïga.
He still participates in its governing bodies but was suspended from the M5 Strategic Committee, precisely because of differences with the current Prime Minister.
Joined by RFI, he believes that this new failure of the negotiations illustrates the bad strategy of the Malian transitional authorities.
“
A good preparation would have made it possible to know exactly what to expect
.
Malian leaders were very surprised because they had undertaken parallel mediation initiatives.
We bet a lot on that, in particular the meditation of the Togolese president, Faure Gnassingbé, which was somewhere a disavowal of the mediation of the former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan (
officially mandated by ECOWAS, editor's note
).
From my point of view, this could have been a factor of failure
”,
considers Konimba Sidibé.
Another failure would be
"
catastrophic
"
A new high is expected in a month.
Konimba Sidibé believes that another failure would be
"
catastrophic
".
To avoid this, he believes that the Malian transitional authorities must demonstrate a better spirit of compromise.
“The duration of the transition can no longer be an issue. If it is true that Mali is ready to accept eighteen months and that ECOWAS is at sixteen, is it worth prolonging the suffering of the populations for a two-month gap? Any other requirements that come out in the press may be the problem. Among these points is the change of government. ECOWAS or not, the current government of Mali is in such a state that it would be suicidal to renew it as it is. So from my point of view it should be no problem,”
he added.
►Also read: Mali: is an agreement possible with ECOWAS on future elections?
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