admin“French protectorate”.
Hollande sparked anger by saying France would ensure that people from Kidal, which is run by the separatist National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), would be allowed to take part in upcoming presidential elections.
The National Convention for a United Africa (CNAS), founded by Soumana Sacko, prime minister in the early 1990s and a presidential candidate, condemned “in the strongest terms the recent misguided remarks of President Francois Hollande on the fate of Kidal”.
Hollande’s comments came on May 16 after a meeting in Paris with his Malian counterpart Dioncounda Traore on the election. The government in Bamako announced on Monday that the poll would go ahead on July 28.
“We said that we are ready to assist the Malian civil administration in Kidal in organising elections,” he went on, adding that “whatever happens, we will assure ourselves . . . that Malians can vote anywhere, under control of the civil administration”.
The CNAS reacted angrily to the comments, saying that international aid and France’s military intervention in Mali did not give Hollande “the right to supplant the Malian authorities and determine in their place the timetable for the return of the civil administration and the Malian army and security forces to Kidal”. — AFP.
Online Reporter