Malians yesterday headed to the polls 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 militants.
There were security fears about the vote even before the war-torn West African country recorded its first COVID-19 case on Wednesday.
About 200,000 people displaced by the near-daily violence in Mali’s center and north would 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 about 19 million people — where large swathes of territory lie outside state control — is particularly exposed to a COVID-19 outbreak.
Late on Saturday, just hours before polls were scheduled to open at 8am GMT yesterday, the country’s first coronavirus death was announced, with the number of infections rising to 18.
The poll would see new lawmakers elected to the 147-seat National Assembly for the first time since 2013, when Malian 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.
The poll has been postponed several times, largely due to security concerns.
After Sunday’s first round vote, a second round is scheduled for April 19.
Casting a shadow over the vote is the fate of veteran opposition leader Soumaila Cisse, who was on Wednesday kidnapped while campaigning in the center of the nation.
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 militants loyal to Fulani preacher Amadou Koufa, who leads a branch of the al-Qaeda-aligned Group to Support Islam and Muslims active in the Sahel, a security source and a local official said.
Cisse and his entourage were probably now “far from where they were abducted,” the security source said.
The government’s election spokesman, Amini Belko Maiga, has admitted that voting conditions are 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 sanitizer available.
Cisse’s Union for the Republic and Democracy party 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 a massive participation in the March 29, 2020, elections,” the party said.
However several other opposition parties called for the vote to be postponed due to coronavirus fears.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to