Mali set for presidential run-off after first round deadlock

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Mali is preparing for a run-off presidential election after no candidate won over 50 percent of the vote in Sunday's first round.

Incumbent Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will face off against opposition figure Soumaila Cisse on August 12.

Keita won 41.42 percent of the first vote with Cisse polling 17.80 percent, according to provisional results, government officials announced on Thursday. Turnout was 43.06 percent, in line with the West African country's historical average.

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

Businessman Aliou Diallo came in third with 7.95 percent of the vote and former transitional prime minister Cheick Modibo Diarra, an astrophysicist who held that office for eight months in 2012, completed the top four with 7.46 percent.

Keita's camp was positive after the first round results were announced. "Forty-one percent in the first round of an election with 24 other candidates is a performance we salute," said spokesman Mahamadou Camara. "We are confident for what comes next in the election."

However, the incumbent prime minister's rivals repeated claims that the president's camp rigged the election by tampering with the electoral roll. Keita has denied any wrongdoing and said the results were fair.

"This election was marred by irregularities, fraud ... and corruption. Despite the magnitude of the fraud the president is forced to go to a second round. It is a victory of the Malian people," said Cisse's campaign director Tiebile Drame.

Malian opposition leader Soumaila Cisse waves to supporters during a presidential campaign meeting on July 26, 2018 at the Mopti stadium in Mali. /VCG Photo

Voters in the vast African country had 24 candidates to choose from in the key poll for the region, which still faces a threat from jihadists despite the presence of 15,000 UN peacekeepers, 4,500 French troops and a much heralded five-nation anti-terror G5 Sahel force.

Growth in Mali has averaged five percent under Keita, and the country's key exports of gold and cotton have flourished, as have agricultural staples such as rice, but security has worsened, especially in the lead up to the vote.

Around 700 of the 23,000 polling stations – mainly in the north and center of the country – were unable to open on Sunday due to violent incidents, but the polling "went ahead calmly" throughout the rest of the country, EU monitors said.

Jihadist violence has spread from northern Mali to the center and south of the country and spilt over into neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, often inflaming communal conflicts.

Mali, considered a linchpin state in the troubled Sahel region, is one of the world's poorest countries, with most people living on less than two US dollars a day.

Malians have this week kept up a tradition in the country of not taking to the streets in violent protest during elections, and the capital Bamako was calm on Thursday evening.

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Source(s): AFP ,Reuters