Mali Junta Anticipates Election Postponement to February

Mali's military junta has announced a further delay to the country's February elections, citing technical reasons including a dispute with French firm IDEMIA over an unpaid bill for a civil registry database. The junta accused IDEMIA of holding the database "hostage," preventing the registration of new voters and the update of the voter registry. IDEMIA confirmed the shutdown of its service due to outstanding invoices and clarified that it has no contract with Mali's interim authorities. The junta plans to migrate the civil identification data to a new system under Malian control. The West African bloc ECOWAS, which has been leading negotiations to restore democratic rule, has not yet commented on the announcement.