Mali counts ballots after disrupted runoff election

Vote counting was under way across Mali on Monday after a tense presidential runoff election marked by violence, closures of polling stations and low turnout.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, 73, is the clear frontrunner in a reprise of his faceoff against former finance minister Soumaila Cisse, 68.

In a reminder of the jihadist threat that was a major campaign issue, the overseer of a polling station in Arkodia, in the northern region of Timbuktu, was shot dead by armed Islamist militants, officials said.

On the eve of voting, authorities said they had disrupted a plot to carry out targeted attacks in the capital Bamako.

More than a hundred other stations in the restive north and centre were closed by security fears, according to monitors Pocim (the Mali Citizen Observation Pool), which had more than 2,000 observers deployed around the country.

The closure figure compares with a total of 23,000 polling stations nationwide and several hundred closures in the first round.

Turnout was just 22.38%, Pocim said. Participation in the first round was 42.7%.

The European Union’s observer mission said on Monday it was able to get to Gao in the north, but not to Timbuktu or Kidal, also in the north, or to Mopti in the centre.

But in 300 polling stations its observers visited, “we didn’t see any major incident”, mission leader Cecile Kyenge said.

Results are expected by midweek at the earliest. –