The junta that seized power in
Mali wants a military-led transitional body to rule for three years and has
agreed to release the ousted president, a source in a visiting West African
delegation and the rebel soldiers said Sunday.
Last week’s coup — Mali’s second
in eight years — followed months of protests calling for Ibrahim Boubacar Keita
to resign as public discontent with the government grew over the collapsing
economy and a brutal Islamist insurgency.
“The junta has affirmed that it
wants a three-year transition to review the foundations of the Malian state.
This transition will be directed by a body led by a soldier, who will also be
head of state,” a source in the ECOWAS delegation told AFP after talks with the
junta.
“The government will also be
predominantly composed of soldiers” under the proposal, the source said on
condition of anonymity.
A junta official confirmed to AFP
that “the three-year transition would have a military president and a
government mostly composed of soldiers”.
The source and the official added
that the soldiers have agreed to free Keita, detained along with other
political leaders since the coup on Tuesday, and he would be able to return to
his home in the capital Bamako.
“And if he wants to travel abroad
for (medical) treatment, that is not a problem,” said the source from ECOWAS,
which stands for the Economic Community of West African States.
Prime minister Boubou Cisse, who has been held with Keita at a military base outside the capital where the coup began, would be moved to a secure residence in the city.
While the coup was met with
international condemnation, thousands of opposition supporters celebrated the
president’s ouster in the streets of Bamako.
– Talks in Bamako –
The junta has said it “completed
the work” of the protesters and has vowed to stage elections “within a
reasonable time”.
However, Mali’s neighbours have
called for Keita to be reinstated, saying the purpose of the visit by the
delegation from the regional ECOWAS bloc was to help “ensure the immediate
return of constitutional order”.
Tuesday’s coup has heightened
concern over regional stability as Mali’s jihadist insurgency now threatens
neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.
The ECOWAS talks are set to
resume in Bamako on Monday after two days of negotiations with the junta.
“We have reached a number of
agreements but we have not reached agreement on all the issues,” Nigerian
ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, head of the delegation, told reporters as
Sunday’s discussions drew to a close.
Both the regional delegation and
the military officers “want the country to move on” after the coup, he said.
“We are just discussing the way forward.”
Jonathan met Keita on Saturday
and said that he seemed “very fine”.
Keita won an election in a
landslide in 2013, presenting himself as a unifying figure in a fractured
country, and was re-elected in 2018 for another five-year term.
But he failed to make headway
against the jihadist revolt that has left swathes of the country in the hands
of armed Islamists and ignited ethnic violence in the country’s volatile
centre.
ECOWAS Commission chief
Jean-Claude Kassi Brou expressed hope over the weekend that it would be
possible to “finalise everything” on Monday, underlining the military’s “strong
will to move forward”.
“We need results, because on
August 26, the ECOWAS heads of state meet to say whether they will strengthen
sanctions against the junta, or if the grip on them will be loosened,” said a
member of the delegation.
AFP
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