BAMAKO: Malians voted on Sunday in a presidential runoff likely to see Ibrahim Boubacar Keita returned to office despite criticism of his handling of the country’s security crisis and allegations of election fraud.

The second round is a rerun of a 2013 face-off that Keita, 73, won by a landslide over former finance minister Soumaila Cisse.

This year’s campaign saw fierce attacks on Keita’s perceived failure to dampen a wave of jihadist bloodshed and ethnic violence, as well as mounting accusations of vote fraud.

But public enthusiasm has been low and the opposition is fractured. “We hope the new president does better and knows how to make up for past mistakes,” El Hajd Aliou Sow, a retired civil servant, told AFP as he left a group of early-morning voters.

Mali, a landlocked nation home to at least 20 ethnic groups where the majority of people live on less than $2 a day, has battled jihadist attacks and inter-communal violence for years.

After the July 29 first-round vote the pool of candidates was reduced from 24 to two, as Keita was credited with 42 per cent of the vote and Cisse, 68, picked up 18 per cent.

That vote was peppered by violence and threats from armed groups that led to several hundred polling stations being closed, mainly in the lawless central region.

Keita cast his vote in the capital Bamako shortly after 0900 GMT and warned against “staged” electoral fraud after accusations of ballot box stuffing and other irregularities.

Cisse’s party told AFP in the early hours of Sunday that ballot papers were already circulating, several hours before polls opened. But he has failed to unite the opposition behind him, and first-round challengers have either backed the president or refused to give voting instructions.

Local observers said voter turnout was low by the afternoon, WANEP said in a statement. Voting closed at 1800 GMT and results are expected within five days. Turnout was low in the first round at around 40 per cent.

The three main opposition candidates mounted a last-ditch legal challenge to the first-round result, alleging ballot-box stuffing and other irregularities. But their petition was rejected by the Constitutional Court.

Outside Mali, the hope is that the winner will strengthen a 2015 accord that the fragile Sahel state sees as its foundation for peace.

The deal brought together the government, government-allied groups and former Tuareg rebels. But a state of emergency heads into its fourth year in November.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2018