West African leaders are pursuing efforts by regional blocks to resolve political impasses in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea countries that have been hit by coups. So I attended the summit on Sunday.
Last month's summit of economic communities in West African countries postponed imposing additional economic and financial sanctions on the three countries. They have been suspended from the block after a military coup and are under international pressure to hold democratic elections.
Marian authorities recently released a transition roadmap that includes the February 2024 presidential election and the March 2023 constitutional referee schedule.
It is not yet known if participants of the Sunday Summit in Akra, the capital of Ghana, will accept the proposal.
ECOWAS sanctioned Mali in January and closed most commercial transactions with this country, along with land and air borders with other countries in the block. This measure crippled Mali's economy.
The military administrations of Guinea and Burkina Faso proposed a three-year transition period, but ECOWAS refused because it took too long to wait for the election.
The wave of military coup d'etat began in August 2020 when Captain Asimi Goita and other soldiers defeated Mali's democratically elected president. Nine months later, he conducted a second coup, dismissing the country's private interim leader and becoming president.
In September 2021, rebellious soldiers dismissed the President of Guinea, and Burkina Faso leaders were expelled in a January coup.
Political turmoil arose as many observers began to think that the seizure of military power was a thing of the past in West Africa.
