Bamako – Mali was voting on Sunday in the final
round of a legislative election that aims to revive public faith in the
country’s embattled institutions despite a bloody jihadist conflict and looming
viral pandemic.
The election has been repeatedly delayed, and the
first round on 29 March was disrupted by jihadist attacks and intimidation,
including the kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaila Cisse.
“I voted. It is important despite the economic
situation. We need new MPs to consolidate our democracy,” Moussa Diakite,
a 23-year-old student, told AFP after polls opened.
Voters in the West African nation of 19 million
people are casting their ballots in the runoff for 147 seats in the National
Assembly.
The country is struggling with an Islamist revolt
that has claimed thousands of lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their
homes.
Polling stations opened at 08:00 (GMT) in the
capital Bamako and also in other provinces hard hit by the insurgency, and will
go on until 18:00 (GMT).
The first provisional results will be announced at
the start of the week.
Delays
It is the country’s first parliamentary poll since
2013 when President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s Rally for Mali party won a big
majority.
Turnout in the first round averaged over 35%
nationwide but was less than 13% in Bamako.
The election was meant to take place in late 2018
after Keita was returned to office but the poll was postponed several times,
mainly because of security concerns.
A “national dialogue” staged last year to
discuss Mali’s spiral of violence called for the ballot to be completed by May.
The hope is that the new MPs will endorse changes
to the constitution that will promote decentralisation.
That is the key to pushing ahead with the
government’s plans for peace. It signed a deal with armed separatists in
northern Mali in 2015 but the pact has largely stalled.
Violence in that region began in 2012 and was then
fanned by jihadists.
Defying thousands of French and UN troops, the
jihadists took their campaign into the centre of the country and now threaten
neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
Mali is one of the world’s most impoverished
nations.
Its conflict zones and poor healthcare
infrastructure place it in the category of countries that health experts say
are at high risk of coronavirus.
An election-monitoring group had warned about
social distancing in Sunday’s vote but Keita said “every health and
security” precaution will be “rigorously applied”.
The country has officially recorded 13 deaths out
of more than 200 cases.
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