Self-governance that was included in “Algiers Agreement” in Mali threatens to divide the country

Algiers Agreement that was signed last Friday in Bamako includes a project for the division of Mali, Former Mali Foreign Minister, Tiébilé Dramé, said.

The minister revealed, in an interview to the French newspaper “Liberation” that the proposal of a unified self-governance in the northern regions of the country will result in serious consequences for the future of Mali.

Tiébilé criticized strongly what this agreement brought, as it was prepared by the mediation team which was headed by Algeria, especially as the document included a new institutional system that gives wide powers to the three regions of the Azawad which are Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao, and the emergence of these authorities may create new conflicts that were overlooked by the peace and reconciliation agreement.

Former diplomatic official, who heads the Mali National Renaissance Party, believes that the project that was submitted by Algeria, as it is the head of international mediation team, holds an imbalance that may lead Mali to “a new institutional system, which is the system of areas (Gao, Kidal, and Timbuktu), which owns broad powers, and that is led by the heads who will have the same powers, noting at the same context that the office of President in these regions, or countries as he called them, which is established under the Algiers Agreement, “will not be appointed by the Regional Assembly, but will be elected by direct public elections. It will be at the head of the regional assembly, the head of the regional executive power, the head of the region / state management. And it will bring together the executive and the legislature authorities.