One week after the announcement of its composition, the number of soldiers actually sitting on this council has never been revealed.
In Mali, members of the Transitional National Council at the plenary session on Thursday, 10 December, worked on the draft internal regulations, which still need to be validated by the Constitutional Court. Work on CNT will then begin, perhaps next week. The CNT, the legislative body of the transition, has 121 seats, the distribution and distribution conditions of which are still strongly criticized by many political actors, by the armed groups that have signed the peace agreement or by civil society organizations. Many condemn the military’s capture of Malia’s transition. But their exact number is still unknown to the battalion.
“They can be nine, at least they do not exceed twelve. The regulations published a month ago, before the appointment of members of the CNT, contained 22 seats out of 121 for representatives of defense and security forces. But this direct adviser to the junta, who “I am not part of any political or associative group,” he says, “the military had the power to appoint whoever it wanted from its quota: they took many experts,” he said. , like me.”
According to this source, this apparently dismantles the accusations of monopolizing the military transition.
Only nine to twelve military personnel, the estimate is approximate and difficult to verify, as the qualities and ranks of the designated persons are not listed in the official list.
Without trellis
Many members of the council contacted by the RFI also explain that they have no idea about the number of soldiers actually sitting by their side. And it is impossible to trust the uniforms: “they are all in civilian clothes”, said one of them.
This was also the case Colonel Malick Diaw, number 2 in the junta, which had appeared without fatigue for the very first time last Saturday, during the installation of the CNT and its election to the Council Presidency.
Another member of the CNT, from the political world and in advance unrelated to the army, understands that there really are nine soldiers. A figure he explains he obtained by directly questioning officers sitting in the CNT. “It shows, he believes, that the military is not trying to get hold of the institutions, contrary to what some political actors say.”
On the question of the subject, the presidency, which validated the nominations, did not follow up.
As for ECOWAS, which had forced the junta soldiers the day after their coup on 18 August, to give more space to civilians in the transitional bodies, it indicates that their real numbers were not informed within the CNT.
.
