Mali's president Keita wins re-election, officials say

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Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita won re-election with 67 percent of the vote in Sunday's runoff against opposition rival Soumaila Cisse, the Ministry of Territorial Administration said on Thursday.

The victory hands Keita a second five-year term in the mostly desert West African country where militant violence and claims of fraud by the opposition marred the poll.

He now faces the giant task of lifting Mali out of a spiral of Islamist and ethnic violence in the center and north where attacks worsened in the months leading up to the vote despite the presence of UN and French troops.

Threats by jihadist militants forced nearly 500 polling stations – about two percent of the total – to stay closed during the runoff, the government said. One election official was killed in northern Niafunke, in Timbuktu region.

Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, president of Mali and candidate for Rally for Mali party (RPM), casts his vote at a polling station during the presidential election in Bamako, Mali, July 29, 2018. /Reuters Photo

It also meant voter turnout of over 2.7 million people was a muted 34 percent of the electorate.

Cisse has accused Keita’s campaign of ballot stuffing and tweaking electoral rolls to secure the win, accusations the president denies.

Despite the bitter rhetoric leading up to Thursday’s results, however, the streets of Bamako and other main cities remained calm this week. The country exports gold and cotton.

Source(s): Reuters