Mali national dialogue recommends naming junta leader Goita president

A national conference of political actors in Mali has recommended naming junta leader Assimi Goita, who seized power following coups in 2020 and 2021, as president with a five-year mandate, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

Following a dialogue held in the capital Bamako on Tuesday, the conference also recommended the dissolution of all political parties and the tightening of conditions for the creation of new parties.

The recommendations are expected to be applied in the coming days.

Goita, 41, who was a colonel at the time of the coups that brought him to power, was in October 2024 elevated to the rank of five-star general.

He has served in an interim role as "President of the Transition" of Mali since 2021.

The military leaders in the Sahel country had originally committed to holding elections in February 2022, a timeline that has been pushed back several times.

They have vowed to fight insecurity in the West African country where jihadist groups allied to Islamic State and al Qaeda have operated for more than a decade after spinning out from a Tuareg rebellion in the north.