Mali's junta on Monday began a consultation on adopting a national charter for political parties, boycotted by nearly all opposition movements out of fear of their dissolution by the soldiers in power.
Many Malian opposition parties fear that the military-led government, like its fellow junta-run west African allies in Niger and Burkina Faso, will use the charter to ramp up the junta's already tough crackdown on political dissent.
After seizing power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, Mali's military leaders in late 2022 organised a national assembly to "build a way out of the crisis", which planned the charter's drafting.
Among the three recommendations it made was one for "the reduction" of political parties, whose activities it had already suspended from April to July 2024.
Two-day consultation
The consultation, which runs from Monday to Tuesday in the capital Bamako, was organised for "the implementation" of the assembly's political recommendations, Minister Mamani Nassire told the conference's opening.
Nassire, who is in charge of political reforms, said that he had sought the opinions of the country's 297 registered political parties from December.
Yet the vast majority had not responded, he said.
Leaders of the opposition parties told AFP on Monday that nearly every dissenting movement had boycotted the consultation's opening.
'Subversion'
"We do not want political parties dissolved," Abdallah Yattara, an official in an opposition coalition, told a press conference in Bamako.
To justify last year's suspension of political activities the junta accused Mali's political parties of "subversion", arguing they posed a threat to the ongoing dialogue on Mali's political future.
Since 2012 the Sahel country has been forced to grapple with a widespread security crisis, fuelled by violence from insurgents affiliated with Al-Qaeda as well as criminal gangs.
The military reneged on its commitment to hand over power to civilians at the end of March 2024, and postponed the presidential election to a date as of yet unknown.
