President suspends constitutional revision

Mali's President has suspended plans for a referendum on constitutional change, a move cheered by the opposition on Saturday after months of street protests against the reforms. ‘In the higher interests of the nation and to preserve a peaceful social climate, I have taken the responsibility of deciding to suspend the holding of a referendum on revising the constitution,’ President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said in a televised address. A report on the News24 site notes that the proposed reforms, the first constitutional revision in 25 years, aim to put in place some commitments made in a 2015 peace accord between the government and former rebel groups in the north of the country. They also call for creating a Senate, with a third of the seats appointed by Keita himself which critics believe is aimed at consolidating his own power.