In Mali, it is a first ballot since the arrival of the junta in power in 2020 which has test value. The population voted Sunday in a referendum on a draft new Constitution. However, the jihadist threat and political disagreements prevented elections from being held in many localities.
The victory of the “yes” seems acquired. But in an environment made difficult to decipher by the opacity of the system and the restrictions imposed on expression, the extent of this victory, the participation and the conditions of the conduct of the ballot could provide indications of the population’s support for the junta and its leader, the reputedly popular Colonel Goïta.
Results expected within 72 hours
About 8.4 million Malians were called upon to say “yes” or “no” to the text submitted to them by the junta. It strengthens the powers of the president, but comes up against the challenge of a heterogeneous opposition, in particular influential religious organizations hostile to the maintenance of the principle of secularism of the State. Results are expected within 72 hours.
Voters went in large numbers to the polling stations in Bamako, before closing at 6 p.m. Colonel Assimi Goïta was among the first to vote in Kati, near the capital. But feedback from the rest of this vast country indicates that, as expected, armed groups from the north blocked the consultation in the strategic city of Kidal and its region. The former rebel movements, signatories of a fragile peace with Bamako, refused to allow the delivery of electoral material there for a consultation on a project where they say they cannot find the agreement they signed in 2015.
In the Ménaka region (north-east), which has been under pressure from the Islamic State organization for months, operations were limited to the regional capital due to insecurity, elected officials reported.
Observers evoke a “terrorist attack” in a polling station
A consortium of national civil society observers, MODELE, supported by the European Union, for its part reported “the non-functioning due to insecurity” of more than 80 polling stations in the Mopti region, in the center, one of the centers of violence that has bloodied Mali since 2012. He reported the transfer of several other offices to the town of Bankass “due to insecurity”. The consortium also mentioned, without further details, a “terrorist attack” which disrupted the vote in Bodio, still in the center.
Among the changes compared to the 1992 Constitution, the acceptance or not of a strengthening of presidential powers is one of the issues of the consultation. Critics of the project describe it as tailor-made for keeping the military in power beyond the presidential election scheduled for February 2024, despite their initial commitment to handing over the place to civilians after the elections.