First ballot organized by the military since their August 2020 coup, the constitutional referendum to be held on Sunday June 18 in Mali should make it possible, if the yes vote wins – which no one doubts – to give this country “all its sovereignty”, according to the president of the transition, Colonel Assimi Goïta.
Symbolically, according to the draft new Constitution, drafted in a context of diplomatic rupture with Paris and rapprochement with Moscow, French should lose its status as an “official language of expression” to become a simple “working language”. . More decisive for the political future of Mali, the vote of this text should above all increase the powers of the Head of State and could clear the way for a candidacy for the future presidential election of the actors of the transition, in the first place that of the number 1 of the junta.
Postponed by three months in March to allow, according to the official speech, a better popularization of the text, the distribution of voter cards and the deployment of the Independent Election Management Authority (AIGE) in the constituencies, this referendum will already have test value on the capacities of the Malian State to organize a vote on the whole of the territory, while whole sections of the country in the grip of jihadist violence escape its authority and that the presidential election remains fixed for February 2024. It is not known whether the local and legislative elections which must precede it will be maintained.
Turnout, traditionally low in Mali, could serve as an indicator, but will it reflect actual voter mobilization? “In the center, due to insecurity, the election can only be held in the main towns,” worries Ibrahima Sangho, president of the Observatory for Elections and Good Governance in Mali, concerned moreover of “the confusion on the parts which will make it possible to vote”. More severe, an actor in local politics, on condition of anonymity, already denounces a rigged election in advance: “The scores will be worthy of North Korea, because the administration will do the work of the voters where it does not there will be no voting, as in the Mopti region. As during the 2020 legislative elections, it is the prefects and sub-prefects who will complete the minutes. »
Observers expelled to Gao and Timbuktu
On Sunday, June 11, advance voting by the military was very crowded with the exception of Kidal, where it was not held, according to the Coalition for Citizen Observation of the Elections in Mali (Cocem). These accredited observers, whose representatives were expelled to Timbuktu and Gao by the AIGE, also noted the non-posting of voter lists, the absence of pre-printed attendance lists and biometric voter cards in 85% of polling stations observed.
In fact, “the campaign is taking place in a peaceful climate”, reports political scientist Kalilou Sidibé: “But it is because there is only one offer: the yes. Every day we receive two or three text messages on our phones from unknown senders telling us to go and vote in favor of the new Constitution. The other side does not exist. While most of the main political parties and civil society organizations are calling for a vote in favor of this draft Constitution, it does not yet achieve consensus.
In the north of the country controlled by former separatist rebels and other militias, all grouped within the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD), steps have been taken by international mediators to allow the vote to take place, while the armed groups are asking for a postponement. They consider that the text does not take into account the peace agreement signed with the power in 2015 and leave the threat of a new Sunday without polls in their areas.
In Bamako, religious leaders, gathered within the Malian League of Imams and Scholars (Limama), expressed their opposition to this text which reaffirms the “attachment to the republican form and the secularism of the State”, on the grounds that it is not adapted to the “religious and societal values” of the country and that “there can be no real refoundation possible in Mali, an old land of Islam, without reference to God”.
In the political class, the Convergence for the Development of Mali (Codem) contests in particular the legitimacy of “a power that does not come from the ballot box” to carry out a reform of the fundamental law. The Mouvement du 5 juin-Rassemblement des forces patriotiques (M5-RFP), which through its mobilizations had greatly contributed to the fall of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK) and the seizure of power by the military in 2020, before divide, denounced on June 3, through the voice of former Prime Minister Modibo Sidibé, a “draft Constitution [which] reinforces the imbalance of powers in favor of the President of the Republic, whom he sets up as a monarch”.
Strengthened prerogatives for the army
If it is adopted, the Head of State will now be responsible for determining the policy of the nation with a government that will be responsible to him and not to the National Assembly. He will also have the initiative of laws in the same way as parliamentarians. The army will also see its prerogatives reinforced, in particular in “the execution of the law”, which could lead it to carry out missions of maintenance of order.
Finally, if, as was the case in the 1992 Constitution, the text put to the vote does not return to the “imprescriptible” nature of the crime constituted by the coup d’etat, the new version indicates that the “facts prior to [ its] enactment, covered by amnesty laws, shall in no way be subject to prosecution”. A way for IBK losers to keep their future away from the courts and, perhaps, to prepare to stay in control beyond the transition period. “Once the Constitution is passed, the transition charter [which sets the legislative framework for this period and stipulates that the president of the transition cannot stand in the next elections] will be declared null and void. The goal of the military is to retain power,” warns political scientist Kalilou Sidibé.
Several observers and actors in Malian political life anticipate the same scenario, the realization of which cannot, according to them, be prevented by a discredited political class. Today, no one publicly declares their opposition to Mali and, as a source on the spot indicates, “it is not necessarily force that prevents people from speaking out, but the country has become binary and to oppose is to take the risk of being perceived as a henchman of the foreigner, with all the dangers that entails”.
Aware of their popularity in the streets of Bamako, the Malian putschists also benefit from a favorable political climate in West Africa. “What is happening right now in Senegal is of extreme importance to us, analyzes a Malian political figure on condition of anonymity. If President Macky Sall insists on running for a third term in February 2024, no one in the region will be able to tell the military to hand over power. »