On August 12, Malians were called to the polls to decide the two candidates present in the second round of the presidential election. Voting marked by low participation and new violence in several parts of the country.
It seems that the election
fever did not win all Malians in the second round of the Malian
presidential election held on August 12. They were called to decide the
outgoing president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, of his rival Soumaïla Cissé, ex-Malian Minister of Finance.
According to the Citizen Observation Pool of Mali (POCIM),
which mobilized more than 2,000 observers in the second round of voting,
the participation rate for 1,571 polling stations was estimated at
22.38% at the time of their closure. . In the first round, 42.7% of
voters went to the polls.
The head of a polling station assassinated
While the local media agree that the second round was quieter than the first, violence has been reported in several localities in the center and north of the country . In the south-west of Timbuktu, in the village of Arkordia, for example, the president
of a polling station supervising the holding of the second round of the
presidential election was shot dead by gunmen, according to local
sources. mentioned by AFP.
Tense situation also in the north of Mali, in the village of
Kiname. Gunmen broke into a polling station and took the election
materials before setting them on fire.
For now, the Malian government has not yet provided an official
figure for the number of people who could not vote. In the first round,
the Ministry of Territorial Administration estimated the number at
245,888 because of violence, mainly in the central regions of the
country.
Malfunctions and irregularities found
Although a relative improvement in the security climate has
been observed, the second round of voting has experienced some
organizational problems. At a press point following the vote, Cécile
Kyenge, the head of the European Union’s observation mission, reported
that among the 300 polling stations observed by 80 European observers in
the country, ” the lists of electors were not displayed.
Moreover, the opposition, which had disputed the results of the
first round of July 29, has once again accused the power to organize
fraud operations. A few hours before the second round, Tiébilé Dramé,
director of the Soumaïla Cissé campaign, said at a press point to be in
possession of “notebooks with ballot strains” mentioning the name of
Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, the outgoing president. “How many notebooks with
bullet holes are circulating around the country?” He asked.
In the first round, “IBK”, given as a favorite, had won 41.70%
of the vote, against 17.78% for the former Minister of Finance. If the
final results of the presidential election will not be known before four
or five days, Soumaïla Cissé has already announced August 13 that he
would dispute the results. He called on all Malians to stand up to mark
their opposition to “the dictatorship of fraud”.
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