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Mali Presidential election run-off: Vote counting begins, Keita remains favorite candidate coming into polls
Mali Presidential candidates Soumaila Cisse (l) and Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (r). PHOTO/File
(Reuters) – Poll workers in Mali are counting votes in Sunday’s high stakes presidential runoff, with former Prime Minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita tipped to claim the difficult job of stabilizing the West African nation after more than a year of turmoil.
The winner of the vote will be able to draw on more than US$4 billion in aid to rebuild the country after military intervention in January routed al Qaeda-linked rebels that had occupied the desert north.
He must also tackle corruption and forge a lasting peace with northern Tuareg separatists after decades of sporadic uprisings, problems that led to the overthrow of president Amadou Toumani Toure in a March 2012 coup and allowed the Islamists to seize the northern two-thirds of the country.
“Whatever the decision of the ballot box, Mali has already won,” Keita, 68, told reporters after voting in the capital Bamako.
“We’ve come together to rebuild a new Mali and give it a new destiny,” said Keita, who is opposed by Soumaila Cisse, 63, a technocrat from northern Mali who headed the West African monetary union (UEMOA).
A trickle of people came out to vote in heavy rains when polling stations in Bamako opened at 8 am local time (0400 EDT). But the turnout picked up as the weather cleared.
Keita’s promises to impose order and restore the honor of a nation once seen as a rare bastion of democracy and stability have struck a chord with voters and won him nearly 40 percent of ballots cast in the July 28 first round.
