The Muslim country of Mali, which sits’ on the west coast of the African coast has underwent a changing of the guard. A coup d’état has been underway in Mali and now seems complete. Mali's coup leaders have unveiled a new constitution and pledging to hold democratic elections even as the West African nation's neighbors’ prepared to send a high-level delegation to lobby for the restoration of democracy.
The new charter, which did not specify when the elections would be held, came hours after the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, threatened sanctions and the use of military force to reverse last week's coup that ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure.
A statement was made public on behalf of the coup leaders on state television and did not indicate that any of the new guard would participate as candidates in the upcoming proposed elections.
The new revolutionary guard stated that civilians would be offered 15 out of 41 posts in a new transitional authority intended to prepare the path for elections. Captain Amadou Sanogo, a US-trained soldier who led the coup, will appoint an interim prime minister and government.
The new constitution guarantees the right to demonstrate or go on strike. It also granted immunity to the leaders of the coup that left three people dead.
ECOWAS has taken measures suspending Mali's membership and is sending five presidents to Mali to try to "restore constitutional order".
The bloc is also putting a peacekeeping force on standby.
Alassane Ouattara, the president of Ivory Coast who holds the rotating chair of ECOWAS, told reporters after an emergency meeting in the capital of his nation - that itself was shot up and bloodied in a political crisis last
year - that Mali's democracy cannot be abandoned.
"We cannot allow this country endowed with such precious democratic instruments, dating back at least two decades, to leave history by regressing. It's why Mali needs to immediately return its democratic institutions to normal,'' said Ouattara."This position is non-negotiable."
“Because the new group was involved in the overthrow of the Libyan government as they were trained by and armed by the U.S., this Coup should be looked at with American influence and thus a jaundice eye” , said Malik Aziz with The Muslim Street.
