MALI: Junta names Ndaw interim president, coup leader VP

FORMER Mali defence minister and retired colonel, Bah Ndaw, was today named interim president while the leader of the junta that seized power last month, Colonel Assimi Goita, was appointed vice president, Goita said in a statement.

The ruling junta has come under intense pressure from leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to return power to civilians following the August 18 coup that overthrew President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

It was unclear whether the arrangement would satisfy ECOWAS, which last week threatened to step up economic sanctions and impose a total embargo on landlocked Mali if its conditions were not met.

An ECOWAS spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

The leaders, and Mali’s partners such as France and the United States, are nervous the coup will set a dangerous precedent, and undermine a fight against Islamist militants across the Sahel region.

Ndaw and Goita were appointed by a group of 17 electors chosen by the junta to oversee an 18-month transition that will culminate in fresh elections. They will be sworn in on Friday, Goita said in brief remarks on state television.

Regional leaders had demanded that the interim president be a civilian, while signalling they would accept a soldier as vice president so long as he is ineligible to replace the president.

Goita did not say whether the vice president would remain next-in-line to the presidency as stipulated in a transitional charter approved a multi-party talks earlier this month.

Ndaw served as defence minister under Keita and was an aide to Mali’s former military ruler, Moussa Traore.

Kaou N’Djim, a spokesman for influential Muslim cleric Mahmoud Dicko, who led mass protests against Keita before the coup, praised Ndaw’s nomination.

“Ba is an upright official. He has never been implicated in matters of financial corruption,” N’Djim told Reuters.

…AU, ECOWAS may sanction Mali

THE 15-member s Africa Union’s security body late Thursday echoed the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, which imposed sanctions on landlocked Mali after the coup toppled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

Junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita met with West African leaders this week in Ghana but failed to resolve a critical sticking point — whether soldiers or civilians will lead the transition.

ECOWAS called for a civilian-led transition government to be installed “in days” and said the bloc would lift its sanctions — which include closed borders and a ban on trade and financial flows — once the change has been made.

Smail Chergui, the AU’s peace and security commissioner, said on Twitter Thursday night that he was calling “for a return to constitutional order and early civilian-led transition in Mali”.

A separate Twitter post from the official AU Peace and Security Department account said it backed ECOWAS’ call for an 18-month civilian transition.

It also “welcomed” the putschists’ decision to release Keita — who was detained for more than a week — but said they should also free prime minister Boubou Cisse and “other dignitaries”.

The AU announced the day after the coup that it was suspending Mali “until restoration of constitutional order,”, and it is unclear what additional leverage it has.

But a spokesman for the junta, Colonel Ismael Wague, said after this week’s talks in Ghana that Mali could face a “total embargo” from ECOWAS if it does not quickly appoint civilian leaders.

The sanctions could bite in the poor country already facing a severe economic downturn as well as a simmering jihadist insurgency and chronic inter-ethnic violence.

Wague nevertheless made clear the junta would prefer the transition be run by the military, and claimed that was also the preference of the majority of Malians.

(Source: AFP)