In Mali, the Transitional National Council is provoking many protests, but despite this outrageous political sequence, CNT was installed last weekend. The last body for the transition will play the role of National Assembly during this period, which should lead to the organization of general elections. An ad hoc committee is already responsible for preparing the rules of procedure, the work can then begin.
Its members are not elected; with this remarkable difference “the CNT will function as a National Assembly, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution”. This is explained by Souleymane Dé, professor of public law at the University of Bamako, an expert with CNSP soldiers who took power on August 18 and a member himself of the National Transitional Council.
CNT already has a president Colonel Malick Diaw, Vice-President of the junta, elected on Saturday 5 December during the installation of the Council. It will then have an office, parliamentary groups and thematic committees: ‘Defense’, ‘Health’, ‘Foreign Affairs’, ‘Malians Abroad’ or even ‘Rural Development’, to name just a few examples. .
Delayed texts
Commissions of inquiry will also be set up: the fight against corruption and impunity is among the priorities of the new authorities and hearings can be held in this context. As for the bills, they can come from the government or from the CNT members themselves.
Initially, however, it is mainly the “backlog” projects that must be dealt with: the National Assembly was dissolved during the coup, almost five months ago. Many texts are therefore waiting to be reviewed. “There is a continuity in the state,” assures Souleymane Dé, “we will not sweep away all texts prepared under the old regime.” CNT must therefore quickly make an inventory of these texts and select those they consider to be priorities.
The mission and ambitions of the transition
The Transitional Legislative Body is expected primarily on “assignments” contained in the Transitional Charter. Eight major axes on which the CNT has only fifteen months left, a period in which the transitional authorities have undertaken to organize credible legislative and presidential elections to record the return of power to elected civilians.
We can cite in particular the re-reading of the party charter and the revision of the electoral system in order to “clean up the mechanisms for the conquest of power”. Souleymane Dé, an expert on the military junta and a member of the CNT, thus promises “an assessment of democracy and multiparty” in Mali: he recalls that the country officially has more than 200 political parties and points to the shortcomings in the electoral register. A globally “reliable” file, this professor of public law believes, but which still contains “errors related to civil status and promotes manipulation.”
Among CNT’s other priorities: administrative reform and operationalization of the new regions (created in 2012 but still not working as such), adoption of a social stability pact (which is complicated given the strike movements that have increased in recent weeks in Mali) , the review of the education system, the application of the 2015 peace agreement and, of course, the restoration of security throughout the territory. So many priorities that will be divided into legal texts whose content remains to be discovered.
The beginning of road work
An ad hoc committee is currently finalizing the rules of procedure: everything related to speaking time, deliberation procedures, possible sanctions in the event of non-compliance by members … in short, the administration of all this Council. The real work begins then. No date has been announced, but the transitional authorities promise to go very quickly.
