Mali junta postpones first meeting on transitional government

Mali's military junta has postponed the first meeting over the transfer of power after rising tensions with the main leaders who sparked the August 18 coup.

Tensions mounted between military junta and the country's longtime political opposition after the coup leaders failed to invite prominent opposition figures to a planned forum on the country's political future.

The meeting ultimately was cancelled on Saturday and the junta leadership instead met with imam Mahmoud Dicko, an opposition leader who on Friday urged the junta to speed up the transition to civilian rule so the West African country could avoid further crushing financial sanctions.

The opposition group has demanded that the military junta give it a role in the transition to civilian rule which the military has promised, though without a timetable.

The June 5 movement, a protest coalition that had campaigned against former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, accused the new military rulers of trying to hijack the coup.

"We state with bitterness that this junta which had sparked hope in the hearts of all Malians ... is in the process of drifting away from the people," said Tahirou Bah, from the Espoir Malikoura association, one of the pillars of the June 5 movement.

Protests followed by coup

After an escalating series of mass protests, young army officers mutinied on August 18, seizing Keita and other leaders and declaring they now governed the country.

The coup shocked Mali's West African neighbours and ally France, heightening worries over instability in a country already struggling with an insurgency, ethnic violence and economic malaise.

READ MORE: A timeline of Mali’s recent political instability

Key player

Mali's influential imam Mahmoud Dicko, a key player in the mass opposition protests that led to Keita's ouster, said Friday that the new military rulers did not have "carte blanche".

"We will not give a blank cheque to anyone to run this country, that's over," he said.

"We led the fight," he said. "People have died and the soldiers who have completed (this fight) must keep their word."

Dicko's spokesman Issa Kaou Djim later expanded on this saying the imam "said the people have started to doubt" the junta.

"A revolution cannot be confiscated by a group of soldiers," he said.

His comments came as a new document published on the Malian government's Official Journal said the junta's head had been effectively invested with the powers of head of state.

Calls for immediate civil rule

The path back to democracy has been a stumbling point with West African heads of state, who on Friday urged the junta to restore civilian rule within a year. But the junta has proposed a three-year timeline. That has led to the unraveling of talks and more threats of sanctions.

The regional bloc known as ECOWAS already has cut financial flows to Mali, and neighboring countries have closed their borders in a bid to step up pressure on the coup leaders.

There are concerns that the new political upheaval could erode what gains have been made in the fight to stabilize Mali.

Keita, 75, was elected in 2013 as a unifying figure in a fractured country and was returned in 2018 for a second five-year term.

But his popularity crashed as he failed to counter the raging insurgency and brake Mali's downward economic spiral.

READ MORE: Blame game underway as tensions between the US and EU grow over Mali coup