Mali: Vote Count Starts in Presidential run-off poll

Election officials in Mali are counting ballot papers after a presidential runoff that observers say was mostly peaceful, even as sporadic incidents of violence broke out in regions where the nation is battling Islamist militancy.

Voters decided Sunday whether President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita should win a 2nd 5-year mandate after securing 41 percent of the votes in the 1st round on July 29. His main opponent, 68-year-old Soumaila Cisse, got 18 percent of ballots cast in the initial race and has not been successful in uniting a fractured opposition to back him.

While support has declined for the 73-year-old Keita, who’s popularly known as IBK, analysts say a lack of strong opposition figures who are not part of the political establishment has helped him gain votes.

Keita cast his ballot at about 9 a.m. in the Sebenikoro neighborhood of the capital, Bamako.

“Now it remains for the Malian people to decide,” he told supporters after voting. “I promise all the difficulties we have experienced over the past years are now behind us.”

Despite growing public discontent with his failure to stem corruption, reverse the spread of militancy, and create jobs, almost two-thirds of Malians still approve of Keita’s performance as president, according to a recent poll. At the same time, opposition leader Cisse served long enough in government for voters to be wary of him, said Mamouni Soumano, head of the advocacy organization Malian Center for Dialogue and Democracy.

Mali fractured in 2012 when Tuareg separatists and Islamist insurgents, benefiting from a massive influx of weapons from Libyan arms stocks, seized the north of the country in the wake of a coup that left the army in tatters. Months after a French military intervention that pushed back some insurgents, Keita won an election on pledges to take back control of the north.

Cisse said he was confident of a win because of voters’ dissatisfaction with IBK’s presidency.

“Over the past 5 months I have traveled across the country,” he said Sunday inside his home in Bamako. “Malians want change, they want a future, they want hope.”

After 43 percent of registered voters took part in the 1st round, the runoff’s turnout was slow across the capital. A group of citizen observers known as Pocim estimated participation at 22 percent at about 1,500 stations where it posted members.

Source: Bloomberg News