Keïta Gets 2nd Term as Mali President With Runoff Victory

BAMAKO, Mali — President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta of Mali claimed an overwhelming victory Thursday in a runoff vote after a controversial first round of voting last month that was marred by insecurity and allegations of electoral fraud.

Keïta will serve a second term after being declared the winner of the second round, which was held this past weekend. He received 67 percent of the vote; his chief rival, Soumaïla Cissé, took 33 percent.

Mali has struggled with security issues, and the violence carried out by Islamist extremists for years spilled over into polling places during the election. In Arkodia, a village in the northern region of Timbuktu, a local election official was shot to death by extremists during the voting, local officials said. In all, security concerns kept nearly 500 voting sites from opening, mostly in the north and center of the country where extremist groups operate, government officials said.

Security was a central issue in the election, with Keïta promising to rein in the extremists, and Cissé blaming the incumbent for failing to have already done so. Islamist extremist groups and other armed militias operate in Mali; it is the world’s most dangerous assignment for United Nations peacekeepers.

Cissé, a former finance minister, has vowed to fight the election results. His campaign director, Tiébilé Dramé, denounced the results and called on supporters to take to the streets at a packed news conference.

Other parties filed court complaints of fraud. European election observers said they saw evidence of irregularities but not fraud.

In the first round, Keïta won 41.4 percent of the vote, while Cissé won 17.8 percent, the Ministry of Territorial Administration said. A candidate needed 50 percent to win outright and avoid a runoff.

Keïta’s victory did not come as a surprise to Malians. The president was flush with cash, exercised a near monopoly over access to state television and used the security forces and the resources of his office to campaign throughout the country. His clear advantages were noted by the European Union’s election observation mission.

Ambroise Dakouo, an analyst from the Alliance to Rebuild African Governance, said that the low turnout during elections reflected disillusionment with the political establishment, consisting of a rotation of “the same elites” who are unaccountable to their constituents, the majority of whom are poor and illiterate.

“Corruption is a very strong force,” Dakouo said. “People will be mobilized and elect someone, and right away they are disappointed.”

“If you ask why people do not vote, they will say, ‘They are all the same,'” he added.

During his campaign, Keïta, 73, trumpeted what he said were the successes of his first term, including creating jobs and expanding access to drinking water, electricity and education. His supporters maintained that he needed a second five-year term to finish what he had started.

“Mali is still not stable. People are poor, there is unemployment, people finish their studies and they are jobless,” said Moussa Touré, a 26-year-old law student, after he voted Sunday. “There are still things which are not settled, and maybe we need 10 years to have change in Mali and give time to a leader or we cannot move forward.”

Critics of Keïta have criticized him for what they say has been lavish spending on presidential jets and travel, rampant corruption, the appointment of family members to key government positions, widespread military abuses and a failure to maintain security in the face of Islamist extremism and ethnic conflict.

Keïta has been in office since his election in 2013, just after a period during which Mali faced an Islamist insurgency, a rebellion by the Tuareg ethnic group and a military coup. During his tenure, violence and insecurity have spread closer to the capital, Bamako, with conflict between ethnic groups and local militias emerging in the central region.

The 14,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force is regularly attacked. The U.N. Security Council has given Mali a deadline of six months to begin to carry out a peace agreement signed in 2015, which involves reconciling warring parties and disarmament, and reforms for the political and security sectors. The peacekeepers could be pulled from Mali if it fails to make progress, according to Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the leader of Mali’s U.N. Mission.

Kola Cissé, who is not related to the candidate, is a local activist who is working to resolve a violent conflict between Fulani herdsmen and Dogon hunters and farmers in the central region. He said Keïta’s government must act immediately to stop the rising conflict.

“The government is completely absent in the center of the country,” he said.