BEVERLY HILLS, May 28, (THEWILL) – Colonel Assimi Goita, who led a coup in Mali last year, has declared himself the country’s transitional president.
He made the announcement after stripping interim President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane of their powers.
Threatened by international sanctions after launching the August coup, Goita’s military junta handed power to the caretaker government headed by President Bah Ndaw and Prime Minister Moctar Ouane.
The nominally civilian government was meant to reform the Constitution and stage elections within 18 months. But Goita himself became the Interim Vice President, and the military retained significant clout.
Ornella Moderan, the head of the Sahel programme at the Institute for Security Studies, said the government was part of a “much larger system designed to ensure the ex-junta’s control of the state apparatus.”
Goita, though mostly out of the public eye, quickly became the point of contact for foreign governments. He would insist on Mali’s commitment to the fight against jihadists, and on returning civilian rule.
On Monday, the Army deposed Ndaw and Ouane after a government reshuffle that would have replaced two colonels who took part in the August coup, who were serving as the defence and security ministers.
The capture of power came after a cabinet reshuffle which Col Goïta complained he was not consulted about. Two Army officers involved in the previous coup lost their jobs in the reshuffle.
Col Goïta said earlier that President Bah Ndaw and PM Moctar Ouane had failed in their duties and were seeking to sabotage the country’s transition.
They were arrested hours after the reshuffle and resigned their positions while in detention on Wednesday.
Announcing their release on Thursday, Col Goïta’s aide Baba Cissé said, quoted by Reuters news agency, “we have nothing against them.”
He added that their whereabouts would be kept secret for their own security.
The former leaders’ release had been requested by the UN, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the EU and the US.
They had been held at a military camp outside the capital, Bamako, since their arrest on Monday evening.
The latest events coincided with a visit by a delegation from ECOWAS. Last year, ECOWAS threatened sanctions unless a caretaker government under civilian leadership took over from the military.
Now that Col Goïta has effectively torn up that agreement by taking charge, it is not clear what the repercussions will be.
But France, the former colonial power, has threatened EU sanctions against the perpetrators, with President Emmanuel Macron describing it as a “coup within a coup”, Reuters reports.
But Goïta has asked people to go about their business as usual and promises the military is committed to the transitional deal.
Once a relative unknown, Goita burst onto the political stage on August 18 when he launched a coup against elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, after weeks of mass protests over perceived corruption and his failure to end Mali’s jihadist insurgency.
Then 37, Goita said in a public address following the coup: “We no longer have the right to make mistakes.”
Cutting a martial figure in fatigues with a khaki shemagh scarf around his neck, Goita has been seen in public since then, but has rarely spoken.
The son of a former director of Mali’s military police, Goita studied at the country’s main military school.
In 2002, he went to Mali’s desert north for training, and was subsequently based in the northern cities of Gao, Kidal, Timbuktu, Menaka and Tessalit.
Goita also saw action during the 2012 Tuareg independence rebellion, which was quickly commandeered by jihadists.
Mali has since struggled to quell the brutal Islamist insurgency, which has killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
A colonel who requested anonymity said that Goita isn’t concerned about how people see him.
“He’s a man of action, we saw him in the north,” he said.
