فاس نيوز ميديا جريدة الكترونية جهوية تعنى بشؤون و أخبار جهة فاس مكناس – متجددة على مدار الساعة
Bamako: The ruling authorities in Mali dissolved “political parties and organizations of a political nature” on Tuesday, according to a presidential decree read on state television, a decision the opposition had feared for several weeks.
This move is the latest in a series of restrictions on freedoms taken by the military, who have been in power since two coups in 2020 and 2021, to consolidate their rule.
Earlier on Tuesday, they also suspended the French television channel TV5 Monde “until further notice,” accusing it of bias in a report on an opposition demonstration.
The dissolution of parties comes after they organized a demonstration that brought together several hundred people in Bamako on May 3rd to denounce this possibility, in a rare act of defiance against the military.
On Tuesday morning, the current authorities abrogated the Charter of Parties, which notably set out their moral and legal framework and regulated their operation, formation, creation, and financing.
There are currently around 300 registered political parties in Mali.
The draft law to repeal this charter was adopted on Monday by the legislative body created by the authorities, the National Transitional Council (CNT), whose members they appointed.
“Political parties and organizations of a political nature are dissolved throughout the national territory,” stated the decree read on ORTM by the Minister in charge of political reforms, Mamani Nassiré.
The head of the Malian authorities, Assimi Goïta, “assigned a specific mission, to continue the reforms (…) in order to satisfy the Malian people on the basis of a certain number of recommendations formulated during the national refoundation meetings” of December 2021, declared Mr. Nassiré.
The objective is to “manage political life serenely and in harmony with our option of sovereignty,” he added.
At the end of April, a national consultation organized by the junta, following the 2021 national refoundation meetings, had recommended the dissolution of parties and the tightening of their creation.
This meeting – marked by the presence of regime supporters but boycotted by most political formations – had also proposed the proclamation without election this year of General Assimi Goïta as president for a renewable five-year term.
Multipartism, as well as freedoms of expression and association, were enshrined in Mali by the Constitution of 1992, the year of democratization.
Last week, the authorities suspended the activities of political parties and associations, citing a “reason of public order.”
A new coalition of around one hundred parties recently formed in Mali to “demand the effective end of the politico-military transition no later than December 31, 2025” and to call for “the establishment of a timetable for a rapid return to constitutional order.”
It also “categorically” rejected the junta’s decision to suspend the activities of political parties and associations.
The military authorities have failed to meet their commitment to hand over power to elected civilians in March 2024.
The opposition in the country has already been targeted by legal challenges, dissolutions of organizations, as well as by the pressure of the dominant discourse on the need to rally around the junta in a country facing jihadism and a severe economic crisis since 2012.
Mali, like its neighbors Niger and Burkina Faso, are led by military juntas that came to power between 2020 and 2023, and have formed an Alliance of Sahel States (AES).
Human rights organizations accuse the three regimes of suppressing dissenting voices in the name of the war against jihadists.
