During the evening of Monday 20 August, the spokesperson for the European External Action Service called all parties to dialogue after the decision of the Malian Constitutional Court earlier in the day to declare Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta as the president of Mali.
"It is in this important moment of the country's democratic life that the EU expects all the actors to work together for the interests of their country and their people", the spokesperson said in a press release, adding that it is important for the future Malian government to continue "to deepen its action on peace and reconciliation, security and governance, and for the improvement of the population's living standards". "These challenges more than ever require an inclusive and constructive dialogue between all the political and social forces of Mali", the spokesperson warned, adding that it was therefore "urgent" to speed up the implementation of the agreement for peace and reconciliation resulting from the Algiers process.
The spokesperson confirmed the EU's commitment to remain Mali's main partner for the country's stability and prosperity, and congratulated Keïta on his re-election.
In another press release, of 15 August, the EEAS spokesperson had said that with the national and international partners, including the African Union, ECOWAS and MINUSMA, the EU election observation mission had played an important role "in the strengthening of the transparency of the election process in a worrying security context".
According to the Constitutional Court, the outgoing president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, won the presidential election with 67.16% of the votes in the second round on 12 August, compared with 32.84% for the opposition candidate, Soumaïla Cissé. The turnout rate was only 34.42%. Keïta, who is 73, will start a second five-year mandate on 4 September. The Constitutional Court also rejected all the requests made by Cissé, with the judges deeming these requests inadmissible or unfounded through lack of evidence. Cissé rejects the results of the election and has called on his supporters "to resist". (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)