1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

Mali elects parliament

December 15, 2013

Mali's second round parliamentary election has ended with low voter turnout possibly due to attacks earlier in the week. Jihadists claimed responsibility for the killings in Kidal of two UN peacekeepers from Senegal.

https://p.dw.com/p/1AZxP
Wahlen in Mali 2013
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Polling began slowly in Mali's capital Bamako on Sunday and failed to pick up throughout the day.

An independent Malian organization - the Citizen's Center for Electoral Observation (POCE) reported low voter turnout.

"The voting took place in good conditions and in a calm climate in the different centers observed. However, the POCE notes that turnout is low in most polling centers," it said in a statement.

Sunday's voting was to cap a recovery that was marked in June by a peace deal and in August by the election of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

At stake on Sunday were 128 seats in Mali's 147-seat national assembly.

In the first round on November 24, which drew a turnout of only 37 percent, just 19 seats were decided. One of those already elected is Soumaila Cisse of the Timbuktu region, who challenged Keita in August's presidential election.

Observing Sunday's vote were hundreds of international and Malian monitors – mainly in safer regions of Bamako and central Mali.

Killings in Kidal

Workers at polling stations reportedly said violence earlier in the week might have impacted voting. On Saturday, two UN peacekeepers from Senegal were killed in the northeastern city Kidal.

Four Malian soldiers were also seriously wounded when a suicide bomber ploughed an explosives-laden car into a bank, which the troops were guarding.

Until recently, Kidal had been a northeastern rebel bastion.

Malian jihadist Ould Badi told the French news agency AFP that Sunday's bombing was in retaliation for the French-led military intervention launched in January against Islamist rebels in "Azawad," the ethnic Tuareg name for northern Mali.

'Huge' operation

AFP quoted military sources on Sunday as saying that the French army had carried out a "huge" operation against armed Islamists north of the desert caravan town of Timbuktu over the past week.

In January, France sent troops to its former colony. They and African troops were then tasked by the UN Security Council with providing security alongside the Malian army for the elections.

The crisis began early last year when rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) launched a string of Tuareg insurgencies in the north.

A subsequent coup in Bamako led to chaos, and armed Islamist extremists linked to Al-Qaeda overpowered the Tuareg to seize control of Mali's northern half.

Broadcasting resumes

Last week, public radio and television was restarted in Kidal. The station had been forced off the air nine months ago by the rebels. The building was handed back in November in line with the June peace deal.

Early last week, the European Union offered Bamako 12 million euros ($16.5million) to help reform its justice system during a visit by Keita to Strasbourg.

Earlier this year, an international donor conference had raised 3.2 billion euros for the African country.

ipj/msh (AFP, dpa, AP)