BAMAKO – Malian voters cast ballots on a new draft constitution Sunday in a referendum that the country's coup leader says will pave the way toward holding new elections in 2024, but critics have called it a delay tactic to extend his time in power.
Col. Assimi Goita, who seized control of the landlocked West African country nearly three years ago, has told Malians that the proposed draft constitution “provides for a better-organized executive power."
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“I am convinced that this referendum will pave the way for a new Mali, a strong and efficient Mali serving the well-being of our people,” Goita said after casting his ballot Sunday.
The election observer group MODELE said that participation at midday had only been about 21% of eligible voters. The mission also cited dozens of polling stations that were closed due to security problems, disenfranchising people. The referendum also did not include Mali's entire northern Kidal region.
Imam Mahmoud Dicko, an opponent of the military junta, invited his supporters to a large hall in Bamako on Friday to ask them to vote against the draft constitution.
“In our country today, can we speak of justice, democracy, human rights, the rule of law? What kind of democracy are we talking about? Where is it? What rule of law is there in a country where justice is used by the military to repress people? That’s the reality of this country today,” said Dicko, a one-time junta supporter who led the movement calling for the departure of democratically elected president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita before he was ousted in 2020.
Malians who voted Sunday said they hoped the constitution's approval would be a step in the right direction for a country mired by Islamic extremist violence for more than a decade.
“I voted so that this new constitution would bring us peace and stability," said Moctar Diallo, a retired driver in Kalasoribougou. “We are in a situation where only the new decisions can bring us peace.”
The proposed draft constitution creates a two-chamber parliament, the National Assembly and the Senate. Until now the country has only had a National Assembly. The draft also consolidates the position of the President of Mali, a move that has drawn much political debate.
The current constitution, dating from 1992, states that “the government determines and conducts the policy of the nation.” In the new constitution, the government “conducts the policy of the nation determined by the president.”
Goita and his junta promised a swift return to democracy after overthrowing the president in August 2020, capitalizing on Malians' growing frustration with the government's inability to stop Islamic extremist violence.
Nine months later, though, the army colonel consolidated power through a second coup that sidelined transitional leaders. The international community pressed for elections but the junta said it needed to revise the constitution among other steps before going ahead.
Mali’s government is now promising to hold elections in February 2024. But the delays already have contributed to deteriorating relations with international partners. France, the one-time colonizer, ultimately pulled out its troops who had been fighting Islamic extremists for nine years in an effort to stabilize the country.
Tensions also have mounted with the U.N. presence in Mali, where the mission known as MINUSMA has some 15,000 peacekeepers. On Friday, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told the U.N. Security Council that those forces should leave immediately. The top diplomat claimed that the peacekeepers have failed in their decade-long mission.
In recent months, Mali’s government has constrained the peacekeepers’ ability to operate and countries such as Benin, Germany, Sweden, Ivory Coast and the United Kingdom have announced troop withdrawals.
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Associated Press writer Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal contributed.