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The authorities in Bamako announced that on Monday, February 27, 2023, the head of the ruling military council in Mali, Colonel Assimi Guetta, received the draft of the new constitution, as amended, without clarifying when this text will be presented for approval in a public referendum.
This amended formula comes after a previous formula completed last fall sparked widespread protests.
The adoption of a new constitution for the country is considered an essential step on the road to the wide-ranging reforms that the army invokes to justify its hold on to power.
A new constitution must be approved for the country on the basis of which the elections scheduled for February 2024 will be held in order for civilians to regain power from the army, according to the road map drawn up by the ruling military council.
In a statement issued on Monday evening, the Malian presidency merely announced that Colonel Guetta had received this “final” draft of the new constitution, without revealing its content.
According to the timetable set by the military council, this text was supposed to be put to a public referendum on March 19.
However, with less than three weeks left until this date, doubts are growing about the possibility of adhering to this date.
The statement of the financial presidency did not mention this issue.
“The final document, which I have just received today, will certainly embody the hope of the whole nation for a true democracy,” the statement quoted Colonel Guetta as saying.
The draft that Guetta received on Monday is a revised version of a first draft that was published in October 2022, but was widely rejected.
According to the committee drafting the constitution, parts of the initial draft were “deleted, others were merged, and other paragraphs were redrafted” in the final draft that Guetta received.
The statement did not specify what was deleted or amended in this document, saying only that the new draft constitution consists of 191 articles instead of 195 in the previous draft.