ECOWAS Extraordinary Summit: Mali suspended from the institution’s bodies

The conference of ECOWAS Heads of State met in extraordinary session on Sunday in the Ghanaian capital. At the heart of the meeting, the situation in Mali on which a series of decisions were taken.

Long-awaited ECOWAS decisions on the latest coup d’état perpetrated in Mali by Colonel Assimi Goïta against the President of the transitional government, Bah N’Daw, were taken this evening. Meeting in an extraordinary summit in Accra on Sunday, the heads of ECOWAS member states discussed the situation in Mali. At the end of the discussions, the heads of state, who condemned the new coup by the Malian military, decided to suspend the country from all the bodies of the sub-regional institution.

In addition, the Malian authorities are required to appoint a civilian as Prime Minister as soon as possible. In addition, ECOWAS is asking Mali to respect its commitment regarding the duration of the transition and to organise the elections in February 2022 as initially planned. A transition monitoring committee will be set up for this purpose.
Present at this extraordinary summit, Assimi Goïta was not worried as he kept his seat as President of the transition. This is a sort of victory for the man who, almost a week ago, had the occupant of this post, retired Colonel Bah N’Daw, and his Prime Minister, Moctar Ouane, arrested.

Another point that the head of the Malian junta can consider as positive is that the country is not quarantined as it was during the coup of August 2020. Such a decision would undoubtedly have suffocated Mali, whose economy was already hard hit by domestic problems and the Covid-19 pandemic.