Choguel Maiga will resume his role as Mali’s transitional prime minister on Monday after more than three months of medical leave, according to a decree read on state television on Sunday.
Maiga was ordered by his doctor to rest in August after months of intense exertion. He was temporarily replaced by Colonel Abdoulaye Maiga, government spokesman and minister of territorial administration.
Choguel Kokalla Maïga (born 1958) is a Malian politician and President of the Patriotic Movement for Renewal, a political party in Mali, and current Prime Minister of the Transition. He served in the government as Minister of Industry and Trade from 2002 to 2007 and later as Minister of the Digital Economy, Information and Communication from 2015 to 2016.
On June 4, 2021, he was named Prime Minister of the Transition by coup leader & newly appointed President of Transition Assimi Goïta.
In the 2007 presidential election, Maïga did not stand as a candidate, instead once again supporting Amadou Toumani Touré. Following Touré’s re-election, Maïga was appointed as Director of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT, later known as the AMRTP) in January 2008.
He remained in that post until he was appointed to the government as Minister of the Digital Economy, Information and Communication on January 10, 2015. He was dismissed from the government on July 7, 2016.
On May 28, 2021, shortly after his coup against N’Daw and Moctar Ouane, Colonel Assimi Goïta announced that the post of Prime Minister would return to M5. The following day, Goïta reportedly spoke of his plans to appoint Choguel Maïga to the post.
In September 2021, at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, Choguel Maïga accused France of having abandoned Mali by deciding to withdraw the Barkhane force. He also did not appreciate not having been warned by his “partners” Paris and the UN.
On August 13, 2022, Maïga suffered a stroke and was admitted to the Pasteur clinic in Bamako. No information about the reason for the stroke has been released.
