BAMAKO,
Mali
Constitutional
experts raised the prospect of two years of military-led rule in Mali following
last month’s coup at talks on Friday, defying calls by the West African
economic bloc ECOWAS for elections within a year.
The August 18 coup that toppled
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita led to swift economic sanctions by ECOWAS, which fears
it could set a dangerous precedent in the region and undermine the fight
against Islamist militants across West Africa’s Sahel region.
The experts’ recommendations
emerged on the second day of talks on a transition. ECOWAS, which stands for
the Economic Community of West African States, has given the ruling junta until
Tuesday to name a transitional president and prime minister.
In an eight-page “charter of the
transition” the experts wrote that a transitional period of 24 months was
needed “in light of the complexity, the gravity and the structural depth of the
Malian crisis”.
They recommended that the ruling
junta, the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP), choose
the interim president and vice president and propose the prime minister, who
would be appointed by the interim president.
The recommendations have not yet
been formally approved by the representatives of the CNSP, political leaders
and civil society groups taking part in the talks, which are due to end on
Saturday.
Some Malian political leaders
have insisted, along with ECOWAS, that the interim president is a civilian, but
the document said the person can be a soldier or civilian.
The candidate must be between the
ages of 35 and 75 and would not be eligible to stand for election at the end of
the transition, it said.
Ghana will host a mini-summit of
ECOWAS leaders next Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Ghana’s foreign ministry said.
It has not said what it will do if its demands are not met by then.
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