Economic Community of West African States<\/a> (ECOWAS) also agreed to ask Burkina Faso’s interim leaders to reduce a proposed transition of 36 months to a “more acceptable timeline,” the bloc’s Commission President Jean Claude Kassi Brou told a news conference.<\/p>\nWest Africa has been rocked by two coups in Mali, one in Guinea and one in Burkina Faso since August 2020, tarnishing its reputation as a model of democratic progress in Africa.<\/p>\n
The 15-nation ECOWAS has repeatedly condemned the putsches and is trying to bring power back into civilian hands.<\/p>\n
“Our democratic values must be preserved,” Kassi Brou said. “Some countries are going through challenges, but we must address those challenges collectively.”<\/p>\n
ECOWAS has already imposed sanctions on Guinea and Mali for dragging their feet on restoring constitutional order.<\/p>\n
Kassi Brou said those measures would be gradually lifted in Mali if its leaders respected the 12- to 16-month ultimatum. Harsher penalties will hit Guinea if it misses its own April 25 deadline, he warned.<\/p>\n
“We have no idea when the transition [in Guinea] will end and this creates tensions in the region and inside the country,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mali’s interim government failed on a promise to hold elections in February and first said it would keep ruling until at least 2025, which was then revised down to 24 months.<\/p>\n
Guinea, whose ex-President Alpha Conde was overthrown in September, has yet to lay out handover plans.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Burkina Faso’s junta, which took over in January, has proposed relinquishing power after three years, raising eyebrows in ECOWAS.<\/p>\n
Before Friday’s meeting the bloc’s chair, Ghanaian President Akufo-Addo, said it was “time to take stock of where we are with our three recalcitrant member states.”<\/p>\n
Sanctions in Mali have already severed the country’s access to regional financial markets, caused job losses and contributed to its default on about $180 million in debt payments.<\/p>\n
Burkina Faso, which has so far been spared, will also face sanctions if the junta does not release ex-President Roch Kabore from house arrest within the next month, Kassi Brou said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
West Africa’s main political and economic bloc said on Friday it would give Mali’s military transitional government 12 to 16 months to arrange elections and offered Guinea’s ruling junta a month to propose a democratic transition timeline. After a summit in Accra, leaders of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also agreed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"Reuters","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,27],"tags":[208,41,248,187],"class_list":["post-2565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-burkina-faso","tag-ecowas","tag-guinea","tag-mali"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}