Mali Presidential Vote Goes to Run-Off on August 11
Mali's presidential election will go to a second round on August 11, the government said Friday, after no candidate secured a majority in the landmark poll.
Figures for Sunday's ballot announced on live television showed former prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in the lead with 39.2 percent of the vote, ahead of main rival Soumaila Cisse with 19.4 percent.
The election is seen as key to Mali's recovery after a coup in March last year overthrew Amadou Toumani Toure, plunging one of the region's most stable democracies into political crisis and leading to an Islamist insurgency.
As hardline al-Qaida allies took control of the country's vast desert north, and threatened to extend their often violent rule, former colonial power France launched a military offensive in January to drive out the Islamist fighters.
"The new Mali is being built with patience, calm and serenity for all Malians united around these challenges above ambitions and pretensions, and not in a climate of agitation and invective..." Keita, 68, tweeted in his latest campaign update ahead of the announcement.
Four former prime ministers and an array of political heavyweights -- but just one woman -- featured in a list of 27 presidential hopefuls, although analysts always characterized the election as a two-horse race between Keita and Cisse.
Dramane Dembele, the candidate for Mali's largest political party, the Alliance for Democracy in Mali, polled just 9.6 percent, taking third place.
Analysts believe Dembele's votes and those of fourth placed candidate Modibo Sidibe, making a total of 14.5 percent, are likely to be transferred to Cisse in the run-off.
This means the backing of the also-rans -- who garnered more than 25 percent between them -- will be crucial.
The first round result was viewed as something of a surprise after Keita took a comfortable early lead over Cisse, 63, a former finance minister and erstwhile chairman of the Commission of the West African Economic and Monetary Union.
Interior minister Moussa Sinko Coulibaly, who announced the result, had said there would be no need for a second round if that trend continued.
Cisse's party said Wednesday the election had been marred by "ballot stuffing", a form of electoral fraud in which people submit multiple ballots during a vote in which only one ballot per person is allowed.
Acting president Dioncounda Traore and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have acknowledged that the vote may be "imperfect" in a country with 500,000 citizens displaced by conflict, but have urged Malians to respect the outcome.
Critics have argued that Mali, under pressure from the international community, rushed to the polls and risked a botched election which could do more harm than good.
But the country has been praised by the international community for running a transparent, credible and peaceful election.
More than 3.5 million Malians cast their ballot, a remarkable 51.5 percent turnout which eclipsed its next best of 38 percent and was higher than the United States has managed in three of its presidential elections since 1984.
Despite heavy security during voting after the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa -- one of the main armed groups in northern Mali -- said it would "strike" polling stations, no serious incidents were reported on election day.
A U.N. peacekeeping mission integrating more than 6,000 west African soldiers into its ranks is charged with ensuring security in the post-election period, and will grow to 11,200 troops, plus 1,400 police, by the end of the year.
The deployment allows France to start withdrawing most of the 4,500 troops it sent to Mali in January to stop the Islamists from advancing towards Bamako and Paris plans to have just 1,000 troops on the ground before the end of the year.
Source: Agence France Presse
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