INTERIM PRIME MINISTER HAS BEEN APPOINTED BY THE MALI JUNTA

Mon 22 August 2022:

The Mali military junta has chosen colonel Abdoulaye Maiga to serve as the country’s acting prime minister while the country’s civilian prime minister recovers from an illness.

Colonel Maiga is also government spokesman and minister of territorial administration and decentralisation.

On state television late on Sunday, a decree announcing his appointment was read.

Choguel Kokalla Maiga, a 64-year-old veteran of civil politics, was temporarily replaced by him as premier after the junta that had seized power in August 2020 staged a second coup in May 2021.

Maiga, who shares the same name as his interim successor, had served several times as minister in previous governments.

He was an unsuccessful candidate in presidential elections in 2002, 2013 and 2018.

He was a founder member of the June 5 Movement — a coalition that had launched a wave of protests against Mali’s elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, before he was toppled in 2020.

Many of Maiga’s former allies have recently criticized him for adhering to the junta’s position.

Both of Mali’s top government offices are now held by the military due to his replacement by a colonel.

Following the coup in May 2021, Junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita had himself chosen to serve as interim president.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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