Ex-prime minister Keita holds wide lead in Mali vote

By David Lewis and Adama Diarra

BAMAKO (Reuters) - Malian former Prime Minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita holds a comfortable lead and could win an outright first-round victory in the West African nation's high-stakes presidential election, the minister of territorial administration said on Tuesday.

The announcement of partial results will likely fuel tensions between Keita's supporters and his rivals, who say they will challenge the results if there is no second round.

Voters turned out in large numbers on Sunday, eager for a fresh start after a March 2012 coup allowed separatist and al Qaeda-linked rebels to seize the desert north last year. It took an offensive by thousands of French troops in January to scatter them into the desert and mountains.

Voting was peaceful and observers have largely praised the polls.

"There is one candidate, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who has a wide margin compared with the other candidates," Colonel Moussa Sinko Coulibaly told journalists in the capital Bamako.

"If maintained, (it means) there will not be a need for a second round," he said. The results represented a third of ballots cast from constituencies across the country, he said.

Coulibaly, whose ministry is in charge of organizing the elections, repeatedly refused journalists' requests for exact numbers. He said the results had been certified by the elections commission.

The spokesman for ex-finance minister Soumaila Cisse, who Coulibaly said was currently in second place, criticized the announcement.

"It is scandalous. A minister, when talking about election results, must give numbers and percentages of every candidate," Amadou Koita said.

Minutes after the results were announced, cars and motorcycles honked their horns and Keita's supporters on the streets chanted "IBK" "IBK" "IBK", the initials he is universally known by.

Cisse and two other of Keita's rivals - Modibo Sidibe, a former prime minister, and Dramane Dembele, the candidate of Mali's biggest party - came together on Monday to complain about the process.

Their FDR coalition, which was initially set up to counter last year's coup, complained that hundreds of thousands of people had been excluded from the vote due to technical shortcomings.

Members of the FDR coalition have claimed that world powers led by France, which pushed for the vote to be held despite concerns over Mali's readiness, favored Keita in the process.

Cisse said he will challenge the results if Keita is announced winner in one round.

"It is up to Mr. Cisse to prove what he claims and to use the legal existing channels for his claim. The imperfections will affect the winners as well as the losers," Louis Michel, the EU's chief observer to the Mali mission, said on Tuesday.

"In my opinion, as of today, the problems that we have been told about will not have an impact on the legitimacy of the process," he told Reuters.

Average turnout was tallied so far at 53.3 percent, well above Mali's record high of 40 percent, Coulibaly said. Final results could be ready on Wednesday.

(Writing by David Lewis and Joe Bavier; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ex-prime-minister-keita-holds-wide-lead-mali-170417197.html

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