Mali election hit by low turnout due to security fears, apathy

Voters stayed away in droves from Mali's run-off presidential election due to fears over security and simple apathy, but the voting process was generally fair despite a number of incidents, election monitors said on Monday.

The vote pitted President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita against opposition leader Soumaila Cisse after an inconclusive first round last month in which Keita won about 41 percent of the vote.

Official second-round results are not expected for a few days but Keita - known as IBK - is predicted to seal a second term in office.

Threats by jihadist militants forced nearly 500 polling stations - about two percent of the total - to stay closed during Sunday's run-off, the government said on Monday. One election official was killed in northern Niafunke, in Timbuktu region.

Security fears severely dampened the turnout, which a civil society group, the Mali Citizen Observation Pool (POCIM) estimated at just over 27 percent of the eight million registerd voters.

Mali is high on the list of Western powers' security concerns due to the presence of militant groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State. A successful election is seen as vital in the effort to restore stability as the government tackles the resurgent Islamist threat and outbreaks of ethnic strife.

The vast nation is also a main transit route for illegal migrants trying to reach Europe, a concern in European Union capitals.

Opposition challenger Cisse had accused the government camp of fraud in the first round, and on Sunday he accused it of ballot stuffing.

But Mohamed Dileita, head of an observation mission from the Paris-based OIF, a federation of French-speaking nations, said on Monday: "Everyone has more or less accepted the verdict... the vote took place."

"At the time I speak, at least, it is a calm election, credible. At the moment we do not see any reason why it changes," Dileita told Radio France Internationale.

LACK OF ENTHUSIASM

Most of the shuttered polling stations were in the Timbuktu region and the conflict-hit central region of Mopti, Security Minister Salif Traore told reporters.

In 2013 French troops pushed Islamist militants out of areas they had seized in the desert north, but they have since regrouped and routinely attack civilians, Malian soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers.

Thousands of troops had been deployed across Mali to protect voters on Sunday after widespread violence in the first round.

POCIM said in its report: "Voters did not mobilize much to fulfill their civic duty."

"The reasons given relate to the security problem and the lack of enthusiasm following the publication of the results of the first round."

POCIM estimated turnout in the capital Bamako at just 26 per cent, while in northern Timbuktu, which was in the hands of jihadists just five years ago, it was 40 percent. Turnout in Mopti was 24 per cent.

It reported isolated incidents of ballot stealing and attacks on polling stations, including two which were torched.

A report by an EU observer mission will be important for the credibility of the election, though it was not clear on Monday when it would be published.
On Sunday the EU mission said the voting had passed peacefully for the most part, although it had no monitors in Mopti, Kidal and Timbuktu regions due to the security threat.