Mali has commenced 2025 with even greater scepticism about the military regimes intentions to retrun to the country to democratic rule. In his address to the nation on Tuesday evening, December 31, the military leaders, General Assimi Goïta, clearly ignoring calls for a clear timetable for return of political activities, announced that 2025 would be ” the year of culture”, not mentioning, or even raising, the issue of possible elections.
Political actors, observers, and ordinary citizens, were nevertheless waiting for a possible announcement on the subject, four and a half years after the military coup of August 2020. Reactions from Aboubacar Sidick Fomba, president of ADEPM party (Democratic Alliance of the Malian People) and supporter of the transitional authorities, former Prime Minister Moussa Mara (Yelema, opposition), and analysis by Malian political scientist Oumar Berté, indicate mixed reactions to the decision by the military authorities..
For Fomba, who is also a member of the National Transitional Council (NTC) and fervent supporter of the military authorities in place. He considers it entirely justified that General Assimi Goïta did not address the issue of elections.
According to him, “the priority of Malians today is not the organisation of elections in a deconstructed state, in a war of survival, and which is especially threatened by the Western collective. We are rather for the reconstruction of our country, the recovery of the integrity [of the territory, Editor’s note] and the adaptation of the defense system in relation to the threats that the AES space is experiencing.” He adds that “The election is neither a priority of the Malian people, nor a priority of the authorities of Mali today. I remember three things from the speech of the president, of the army general Assimi Goïta. One, a new Malian through the national program of education in societal values. Second, President Assimi Goïta announced an economic emergence of our country to allow the Malian people to have food at controlled prices, and to initiate economic development based on our mineral resources. Third, the progress of the operationalization of the security forces of Mali to reconquer the entire territory.”
The reaction has been much less enthusiastic from former Prime Minister Moussa Mara, whose Yelema party is calling for elections to be held to return to constitutional order, and who does not hide his disappointment after General Assimi Goïta’s wishes.
“It is clear”, Mara says, “that we all expected him to open up clear perspectives on the issue of elections, especially since the government itself included in the 2025 budget the resources to be able to face the elections. But it is the presidential speech that sets the tone for the year 2025, and the fact that nothing has been said on the subject leaves one perplexed to say the least because today, it is obvious that the overwhelming majority of Malians are waiting for the end of the Transition and the elections, for the return to the constitutional order of our country.”
He adds that “As a political actor, it is a disappointment, because today the Transition is out of steam. The living conditions of Malians are deteriorating at an accelerated pace. We lack electricity, and electricity is essential for everything, even for the promotion of culture that he [Assimi Goïta, Editor’s note] intends to launch in 2025: without electricity, it will be very difficult. And on this issue too we have had no perspective [in the presidential speech, Editor’s note]. The ideal solution to all this is that we have elections to put an end to this parenthesis and for the country to start again.”
Oumar Berté, a Malian lawyer and political scientist at the University of Rouen, notes that a reconciliation of the military authorities and the Malian political class has not been achieved. A reality that has been further proven by the sentencing to two years in prison of Issa Kaou N’Djim, a known political and media figure in the country. The Malian opposition continues to demand the release of many other “prisoners of opinion “. For Oumar Berté, this context of tension complicates any electoral prospects.
He says “We have been in the same dynamic for some time in this country: all dissenting voices are reduced to imprisonment or intimidation. Former Prime Minister Ousmane Issoufi Maïga, who was commissioned to draft a peace charter, recently obtained the release of eleven detained political leaders, but if at the same time the Justice continues to sentence people to heavy sentences for simple crimes of opinion, this poses a problem for freedom of opinion in this country, and for the reconciliation that they [the Malian transitional authorities, Editor’s note] intend to advocate with the political class and all components of society.
In a document addressed to the President of the Association of Municipalities of Mali (AMM), which was reported by the Malian online platform, aBamako.com, the Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister, in charge of Political Reforms and Support for the Electoral Process, Mamani Nassire, requested that proposals and suggestions on the Review of the Charter of Political Parties be sent no later than Friday, March 14, 2025.
According to the document, this review requested by the National Conference on reformation, held from December 11 to 30, 2021, which formulated 517 recommendations, reflects the priorities of the People in the short, medium and long term.
These recommendations were translated into government actions in the Strategic Framework for the reformation of the State, accompanied by action plans.
Thus, with regard to the reforms to be undertaken, it is included under Axis No. 1 Governance, Political and Institutional Reforms, the Review of the Charter of political parties, with a reaffirmation of the status of Leader of the Opposition.
Former Prime minister, Dr. Choguel Maiga, while presenting New Year’s wishes for 2025 by the members of his party, the MPR, at his home. has also denounced the arrests and intimidation of political activists by the authorities, saying “you cannot govern a country by fear. Even if you put everyone in prison, it will not be enough. You have to govern by virtue.
