paper during a meeting for the campaign of the parliamentary
elections in Bamako on March 23, 2020. MICHELE CATTANI /
AFP
Malians headed to the polls on Sunday for a
long-delayed parliamentary election just hours after the country
recorded its first coronavirus death and with the leading
opposition figure kidnapped and believed to be in the hands of
jihadists.
There were security fears about the vote even before the
war-torn West African country recorded its first coronavirus
infection on Wednesday.
Some 200,000 people displaced by the near-daily violence in
Mali’s centre and north will not be able to vote, because “no
mechanism has been established” for them to do so, a government
official said.
There were also fears that the impoverished state of some 19
million people — where large swathes of territory lie outside state
control — is particularly exposed to a COVID-19 outbreak.
Late Saturday, just hours before polls were scheduled to open at
0800 GMT Sunday, the country’s first coronavirus death was
announced, with the number of infections rising to 18.
The poll will see new MPs elected to the 147-seat National
Assembly for the first time since 2013 when President Ibrahim
Boubacar Keita’s Rally for Mali party won a substantial
majority.
Parliamentary elections were meant to take place again in late
2018 following Keita’s re-election, but the poll was postponed
several times, largely due to security concerns.
After Sunday’s first-round vote, a second round is scheduled for
April 19.
– ‘Difficult times’ –
Casting a shadow over the vote is the fate of veteran opposition
leader Soumaila Cisse, who was kidnapped on Wednesday while
campaigning in the centre of the country.
Cisse, 70, who has been runner-up in three presidential
elections, and six members of his team were abducted in an attack
in which his bodyguard was killed.
He was “likely” being held by jihadists loyal to Fulani preacher
Amadou Koufa, who leads a branch of the al-Qaeda-aligned GSIM
active in the Sahel, according to a security source and a local
official.
Cisse and his entourage were probably now “far from where they
were abducted,” the security source told AFP.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
The government’s election spokesman, Amini Belko Maiga, has
admitted that voting conditions were not ideal.
“It’s true that we cannot say that everything is perfect, but
we’re doing the maximum,” he said, referring to the threat of
coronavirus.
He added that hand-washing kits had been distributed in the
countryside, while in the capital Bamako, authorities would make
masks and hand sanitisers available.
Cisse’s Union for the Republic and Democracy (URD) on Saturday
urged its supporters to turn out in even greater numbers.
“In these difficult times our country is going through, more
than ever, the party’s activists are resolutely urged to redouble
their efforts for massive participation in the March 29, 2020
elections,” the country’s main opposition party said.
However several other opposition parties called for the vote to
be postponed due to coronavirus fears.
– Hopes for peace –
The country has been plagued by conflict since 2012 when rebels
captured much of the country’s arid north.
Jihadists overtook the rebels in the north and swept into the
country’s centre, accelerating a conflict which has killed
thousands of soldiers and civilians.
Despite the numerous difficulties, experts nonetheless hope that
Sunday’s election will lead to reforms that might drag Mali out of
its cycle of violence.
In particular, the hope is that the new parliament will
implement reforms from a peace agreement brokered between the
Bamako government and several armed groups, in Algiers in 2015.
Implementation has been painfully slow, although this year saw
the Malian army deploy units made up of both former rebels and
regulars, one the provisions of the Algiers agreement.
The pact also provides for the decentralisation of governance in
Mali, a demand of some of the rebel groups.
AFP
The post Mali Votes Amid Coronavirus, Security Fears
appeared first from online sources and was reposted by the community on SWP Super Word Press
Nigeria Digitalmarket.i.ng.