Aichata Cisse’s PAP Presidential ambition and Mali’s February 2022 parliamentary elections

The ambition of Hon. Haïdara Aissata Cissé to run for the President of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) in May 2021 appear to have suffered another setback following the announcement by Mali’s Transitional Government that presidential and parliamentary elections would hold on February 27, 2022.

The implication of this development is that Hon. Cisse’s membership of the Transitional National Council (CNT) would end by the end of the year.

Under the Rules of the Pan African Parliament, members going for elections back home are required to vacate their seats at PAP and be sworn in if re-elected. Hon. Cisse had vacated her position as the Second Vice President at PAP for election back in Mali in March 2020. She won re-election but the military coup in August 2020 resulted in the takeover of the government and the dissolution of the elected parliament. She is yet to return or be sworn in at PAP since then.

This announcement of the February 2022 election is compounded by reports that the Pan African Parliament  may reject Mali delegation following a similar treatment by the ECOWAS Parliament which argued that the National Transitional Council (CNT), the body entrusted with legislative power in Mali was not elected but appointed by the military.

According to reports, the President of the Transition, by decree No 2021_0001 / PT-RM of January 04, 2021, confirmed the appointment of Hon. Cisse as a member of the CNT. She replaced Imam Oumarou Diarra, an influential member of the M5-RFP who resigned from the CNT.

Following her appointment to the CNT, Hon. Cisse immediately announced her candidacy for the Presidency of the Pan-African Parliament. According to a statement she released on January 4, 2021, the declaration was “In order to continue my mandate and make my candidacy as President of the Pan-African Parliament reality, I have just been appointed to the CNT”.

African Parliamentary News recalls that on August 18, 2020 young military officers overthrew Mali’s elected President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita after a wave of protests.

Parliamentary elections had been held in March and April 0920. Popular unrest began on June 5, 2020 following alleged irregularities in the parliamentary elections.

Faced with international sanctions, the military officers handed over to a caretaker government which promised to organize elections within eighteen months.