Voters defy Islamist death threats in watershed election

BAMAKO: Malians defied Islamist death threats to vote yesterday for a president expected to usher in a new dawn of peace and stability in the conflict-scarred nation.

Voters have a choice of 27 candidates in the first election since last year’s military coup upended one of the region’s most stable democracies as Islamist militants hijacked a separatist uprising to seize a vast swathe in the desert north of the country.

The ballot opened at 8am local time under heavy security after one of the main Islamist armed groups in northern Mali said on Saturday it would ‘‘strike’’ polling stations.

‘‘The polling stations and other voting places for what they are calling the elections will be targeted by mujahedeen strikes,’’ the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa said in a statement carried by neighbouring Mauritania’s ANI news agency.

It did not specify what form the attacks would take but the group warned Malian Muslims to ‘‘stay away from the polls’’.

In a polling station at a school in Bamako, hundreds of people had been queueing for more than an hour to vote.

‘‘We are tired of bad governance. I’d urge the candidates to accept the results of our vote,’’ said machine operator Kalifa Traore, 56.

Although the three-week campaign ended on Friday without major incident, it played out in the shadow of violence in the north that has raised doubts over Mali’s readiness to deliver a safe and credible election.

Critics at home and abroad have argued that Mali, under pressure from the international community, is rushing to the polls and risking a botched election that could do more harm than good.

But Louis Michel, the head of the European Union observation mission, sounded a note of optimism on Friday, saying conditions had been met for a credible first round.

‘‘I believe that these elections can take place in a context and in conditions that are acceptable and do not allow for a distortion or an abuse of the result,’’ he told reporters in the capital Bamako.

Much of the worry ahead of the polls has been focused on Kidal, occupied for five months by Tuareg separatists until a ceasefire accord allowed the Malian army earlier this month to provide security.