An Election in a Troubled Land

By Henry Srebrnik, [Fredericton, NB] Daily Gleaner 

People in a troubled African state went to the polls twice this summer. The result was no surprise.

On July 29, the African nation of Mali held a presidential election, with 24 candidates on the ballot. 

Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the incumbent, came first but failed to secure enough votes to win a second term in office outright.

A candidate needed to obtain more than 50 per cent of the votes to win outright.

Keita won 41.4 per cent of the vote in the first round, while his main rival, Soumaila Cissé, came in second with 17.8 per cent.

The two, who also went to a runoff vote in 2013, contested the second round of voting on August 12.

This time, Keita beat Cissé by 67 to 32 per cent.

No opposition leader has ever won an election against a sitting president in Mali’s five presidential elections since 1991.

Keita has been president since 2013. He was prime minister from 1994 to 2000.

He was elected president in the 2013 presidential election and the party he founded in 2001, Rassemblement pour le Mali, came first in the legislative elections.

Cissé, a former finance minister and leader of the Union pour la République et la Démocratie, was again his main challenger.

The northern part of the country has been embroiled in conflict for the past six years.

Tuareg rebels and loosely allied jihadists seized the desert north in 2012, prompting French forces to intervene to push them back the following year.

But they have since regained a foothold in the north and centre, using the sparsely-populated Sahel as a launchpad for attacks across the region. Canada is now involved in peacekeeping efforts there.

More than 300 civilians have died in ethnic clashes this year, according to UN figures.

By the time something that looked like order had been restored, Mali had become one of the ten poorest nations in the world.

Low voter turnout in the first round -- only some 41 per cent participated -- was attributed to people fearing political intimidation or electoral violence, despite the presence of 15,000 UN peacekeepers and 4,500 French troops.

In northern towns like Gao, residents charged that Keita cut a deal with armed groups to rig the vote. Cissé also accused Keita of stuffing ballot boxes.

Polls in the runoff had an even lower turnout -- some 34 per cent -- amid attacks and violence by Islamic extremists, who disrupted a fifth of Mali’s polling stations.

Some observers hoped that the election would strengthen a 2015 accord that brought together government officials, government-allied groups, and former rebels.

But most Malians express little faith in the state’s capacity to reduce criminality, manage the economy, create jobs, or fight corruption. This election didn’t change their minds.