Mali - 2024 Elections
In June 2021, Colonel Assimi Goïta was sworn in as interim President. Goïta led the coup that removed elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Kéïta in August 2020. He became vice-president in a civilian-led administration. In April 2021 the transitional administration confirmed legislative and presidential elections would take place on 27 February 2022. Goïta led a second coup in May 2021, taking power himself.
Goïta initially proposed 2026 for elections, before revising it to 2025 after pressure from ECOWAS. After holding an extraordinary summit on Mali in January 2022, Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS] said the proposed calendar was “totally unacceptable”: "This calendar simply means that an illegitimate military transition Government will take the Malian people hostage during the next five years." In July 2022,
The Malian authorities then announced in June, ahead of another ECOWAS summit, a revised election timetable for the transition to end in 2024. Presidential elections would be held in February 2024, preceded by a referendum on a revised constitution in March 2023. Local elections will be held in June 2023 followed by a legislative ballot between October and November 2023. ECOWAS lifted a set of trade and financial sanctions against Mali after the military government committed to a March 2024 handover.
There has been little progress in implementing the 2015 agreement on peace and reconciliation in Mali (also known as the Algiers accords). The Carter Center, the independent observer of the implementation of the agreement, has said “implementation is at an unprecedented impasse”. Reporting in June 2022, the Carter Center found the main bodies in the implementation process have “virtually stopped functioning” and the signatory parties have made no meaningful progress for nearly a year.
With occasional notable exceptions, the transition government made little effort to investigate, prosecute, or punish government officials who committed abuses, whether in the security forces or elsewhere in the transition government. The transition government made some efforts to address corruption. Impunity for serious crimes committed in the country’s northern and central regions continued with few exceptions, in view of the transition government’s lack of control of 80 percent of the national territory.
Nonstate armed groups, including several signatories to the 2015 Algiers Accord for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali (Algiers Accord), committed serious human rights abuses, including summary executions, torture, and the unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers. Wagner Group forces, often operating in close coordination with the Malian Armed Forces, allegedly committed unlawful killings, rapes, and other abuses. Terrorist groups kidnapped and killed civilians, including humanitarian workers. Ethnic militias, formed to defend one ethnic group from other ethnic groups or other armed groups, committed serious human rights abuses, including summary executions, and destroyed homes and food stores. Government investigations and prosecutions were rare because civilian and military officials lacked the political will to investigate, and most abuses occurred in areas the transition government did not control.
Fighting continued in Gao and Ménaka regions, with Islamic State in the Greater Sahara expanding the area under its control. In central Mali, groups affiliated with Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin continued to pose a significant threat, as exemplified by the complex attacks on Sévaré on 22 April 2023. Extremist attacks against State targets such as customs and forestry posts also persisted in southern and western Mali. On the basis of figures collected by the Mission, from 1 July 2022 to 22 May 2023, a total of 1,002 civilians died and 445 others were injured because of armed conflict, improvised explosive device incidents and criminal acts.
As of 03 October 2022, the UN secretary general documented attacks against civilians by all parties during the year that resulted in the killing of 908 civilians. Reports of civilian killings by the Malian Armed Forces increased exponentially. The United Nation’s Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)’s Human Rights and Protection Division (HRPD) in May, August, and November documented 1103 civilians killed since January 1, a 230 percent increase over the previous nine months. Of these killings, security forces were reportedly responsible for 435, an eight-fold increase over the previous nine months.
Most human rights abuses committed by the military appeared to target Fulani, Tuareg, and Arab individuals and were believed to be either retaliation for attacks attributed to armed groups associated with those ethnicities or the result of increased counterterrorism operations.
In Timbuktu region, Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin and Islamic State in the Greater Sahara activities were concentrated in the Gourma Rharous cercle, where those groups were fighting for influence. In response, Malian Armed Forces intensified their presence. In Ménaka region, elements of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara stormed the village of Tidermene on 10 April, signalling the expansion of the group’s presence into all six cercles of the region.
In Gao region, Ansongo cercle experienced the highest number of incidents related to activities of extremist groups and opportunistic criminality. On 20 April, alleged combatants of Islamic State in the Greater Sahara attacked a post of the Malian Armed Forces in Labbezanga village, killing one soldier and injuring another. Protesting rising insecurity, the local population in Bara blocked the Gao-Ansongo road on 26 April. In response, Malian Armed Forces reinforced patrols in the area. On 10 and 11 May, MINUSMA also patrolled Bara village and, on 11 May, conducted a deterrence flight in coordination with Malian Armed Forces to deter extremist group activities in the area.
Since 30 June 2022, despite sustained efforts by the Government to improve the situation, the central regions of Mali continued to experience a high level of insecurity. On 22 April 2023, Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin carried out complex attacks against bases of the Malian Armed Forces in Sevaré town, including the Air Force base, next to the airport and MINUSMA camp. The attacks killed 10 civilians, injured 61 others and severely damaged civilian infrastructure.
The law criminalizes offenses such as undermining state security, demoralizing the armed forces, offending the head of state, sedition, and consorting with the enemy. Corruption in all sectors of the administration was widespread. Authorities did not hold police accountable for corruption. Officials, police, and gendarmes frequently extorted bribes.
The international mediation team in early 2023 pursued its consultations with the parties to facilitate the resumption of the work of the monitoring mechanisms. On 7 April, proposals were submitted to them to solicit engagement on issues revolving around the following: (a) political and institutional reforms, including the identification of and consensus around the legislative and regulatory measures aimed at facilitating the implementation of the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali; (b) defence and security issues, in particular the swift operationalization of the ad hoc commission mandated to resolve outstanding issues related to the chain of command within the national defence and security forces and the integration of senior civilian officials of the movements into the Malian Defence and Security Forces and State institutions, preparatory measures for the launching of the global disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process and the revision of current security arrangements; (c) the effective launch of development projects agreed upon within the framework of the Sustainable Development Fund and the identification of additional priority projects, as well as the scaling up of the humanitarian response in support of affected communities; and (d) the role of the international mediation team, including as it relates to its arbitration authority.
The stated objectives of the new electoral law promulgated in July 2022 and amended in February 2023 are to address shortcomings in the electoral system, including those identified by Malians as important drivers of the 2020 post-electoral crisis.
Opponents of the Constitutional amendments were concerned that the new constitution places more power in the president’s hands before the elections amid uncertainty over whether interim leader Assimi Goita will run. They have also questioned the legality of amendments carried out by a non-democratically elected government.
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