BFF-73 EU asks Mali for details of key presidential vote

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EU asks Mali for details of key presidential vote

BAMAKO, July 31, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The European Union on Tuesday pressured
Mali to present a “complete and detailed list” of polling stations where a
key presidential election could not be held due to violence.

Not a single ballot was cast at 716 polling stations in Sunday’s first
round vote in the volatile central region of Mopti and some parts of the
north following threats and attacks by armed groups.

There were some a total of 23,000 polling stations nationwide.

Security was a central issue during the campaign, in which 73-year-old
President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita is seeking re-election with the
international community hoping the poll will strengthen a 2015 peace accord.

In Mali’s north, where the state is barely present, armed groups who signed
the peace accord helped to ensure security.

The vote was monitored by observers from the European Union, the African
Union, the regional ECOWAS grouping and the Francophonie organisation.

The EU mission said it had asked authorities “to publish a complete and
detailed list of the polling stations where voting was not held,” its head
Cecile Kyenge, an Italian, said.

The EU team deployed about 100 monitors nationwide — apart from in the
central Mopti region where none were sent for security fears — and said the
vote “passed off peacefully in the rest of the country.”

Kyenge also called for the publication of the results online “as soon as
possible”. No results have been declared so far.

Keita’s camp on Monday said he appeared to be “largely ahead”.

There were 23 other candidates. Keita’s leading challenger is Soumaila
Cisse, 68, a former finance and economy minister, who lost by a wide margin
in the 2013 election that brought Keita to power. He is widely expected to be
present in the second round run-off vote.

Cisse’s campaign director Tiebile Drame said the team was “legitimately
satisfied” but criticised authorities for failing to provide adequate
security.

Some 30,000 security personnel were deployed throughout the country.

Violence also marred the lead-up to the election, despite the presence of
15,000 UN peacekeepers, 4,500 French troops and a much heralded five-nation
anti-terror G5 Sahel force.

The jihadist violence has spread from northern Mali to the centre and south
of the country and spilled over into neighbouring 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 $2 a day.

BSS/AFP/MRI/2301 hrs