MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd January, 2022) The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will hold an extraordinary summit on Mali on January 9, the ECOWAS Commission informs.
"An Extraordinary Summit on Mali will be held on Sunday January 9, 2022 in Accra, Republic of Ghana," Jean-Claude Kassi Brou, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, said in a Saturday statement.
Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop announced in November that presidential and parliamentary elections initially scheduled for early 2022 in Mali would be postponed due to the volatile security situation across the country.
Mali has experienced two military coups in the past two years. During the first, which took place on August 18, 2020, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was ousted from power. The military group appointed Ba Ndaw as interim president, but he was arrested by soldiers on May 24. The Military Council, led by Vice President Assimi Goita, took over the country and announced that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held in 2022. The constitutional court of Mali declared Goita president of the transitional period.
ECOWAS, West Africa's main political and economic bloc, has been pressing Mali to respect its commitment to hold presidential and legislative elections in February 2022 following the August 2020 military coup.
