03/01/2013 21:35 GMT
BAMAKO, March 01, 2013 (AFP) - The presidential election meant to haul Mali out of crisis will take place in July, the prime minister's chief of staff said Friday, without giving a precise date.
"Measures have been taken to respect the deadline," Boubacar Sow, chief of staff for Prime Minister Diango Cissoko, told AFP, a month after interim president Dioncounda Traore promised a vote by July 31.
"The security situation on the ground, a return to government in the north and of refugees and displaced residents are the prerequisites for which we are trying to find quick solutions," Sow said.
The elections are part of a roadmap adopted unanimously by parliament in January to restore constitutional rule in what was once considered one of west Africa's most stable democracies.
Mali is struggling to claw its way out of a crisis unleashed by a March 22 coup that ousted democratically elected president Amadou Toumani Toure, creating a power vacuum that the Islamist rebels exploited to seize the north of the country.
A French-led military operation launched on January 11 pushed the rebels from the towns they controlled.
Sow said that in two or three months, a part of the Malian administration would "in principle" be restored in the north's three main cities of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal.
He did not offer any details on when polls might take place.
Critics have said July is too soon to organise the presidential and parliamentary polls given the problems Mali faces.
The French-led offensive continues to battle ongoing insurgent attacks in a nation weakened by a deeply divided military and where hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.
Senegal's President Macky Sall said Friday that while it would be more "realistic" to hold elections at the end of the year, it was still too early to push back the date from July.
"Political dialogue needs to resume and in particular, the process of defining the electoral register needs to take place at the same time. If we work on those two aspects at once, we might make it," he said in an interview with the France 24 news channel.
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