Acts of intimidation and allegations of vote buying marred the final round of legislative elections in Mali on Sunday aimed at reviving confidence in embattled institutions despite a bloody jihadist conflict and a virus pandemic.

In central Mali, the president of a voting station was forcibly removed and representatives of the electoral commission “chased away by armed men”, one of the representatives told AFP.

Military sources confirmed the incident.

Elsewhere, voting was cancelled after jihadists threatened to attack voters, witnesses said.

Already on Saturday, unknown assailants had destroyed voting equipment in northern Mali.

And on Sunday, observer umbrella group Synergie said there had been many incidents of vote buying at several voting stations.

The first provisional results are to be announced at the start of the week.

The election had been repeatedly delayed, and the first round on March 29 was disrupted by jihadist attacks as well as the kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaila Cisse.

‘Consolidate our democracy’

“I voted. It is important despite the economic situation. We need new MPs to consolidate our democracy,” Moussa Diakite, a 23-year-old student, told AFP.

Another student, Hamchetou Toure, said she wore a face mask and observed social distancing rules as she voted in the semi-desert country, which has so far recorded 216 cases of the virus including 13 deaths.

Among the measures taken by the government are a night-time curfew, school closures and restrictions on some activities — but people still filled markets, mosques and public transport.

The Synergie said anti-virus protection kits had been distributed to over 96 percent of polling stations that it visited across the former French colony.

It said poll workers wore masks in over 87 percent of the stations visited.

Mali, one of the world’s poorest countries, is struggling with an Islamist revolt that has claimed thousands of lives and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes.

Sunday’s runoff in the West African nation of 19 million people is for 147 seats in the National Assembly.

Voting took place in the capital as well as the troubled central town of Mopti and Gao in the north, according to residents.

Delays

It was the country’s first parliamentary poll since 2013 when President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s Rally for Mali party won a big majority.

Turnout in the first round averaged over 35 percent nationwide but was less than 13 percent in the capital Bamako.

On Sunday’s second-round vote, turnout was 23.2 percent, according to Synergie, which had dispatched election observers.

The election had been meant to take place in late 2018 after Keita was returned to office but was postponed several times, mainly because of security concerns.

A “national dialogue” staged last year to discuss Mali’s spiral of violence called for the ballot to be completed by May.

The hope is that the new MPs will endorse changes to the constitution that will promote decentralisation.

That is the key to pushing ahead with the government’s plans for peace. It signed a deal with armed separatists in northern Mali in 2015 but the pact has largely stalled.

Violence in that region began in 2012 and was then fanned by jihadists.

Defying thousands of French and UN troops, the jihadists took their campaign into the centre of the country and now threaten neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Mali’s conflict zones and poor healthcare infrastructure place it in the category of countries that health experts say are at high risk of coronavirus.

Keita, addressing the nation wearing a face mask, said “every health and security” precaution would be “rigorously applied” during Sunday’s vote.

(AFP)

Ivory Coast’s ruling party has named the prime minister as its candidate for the October presidential poll, after President Alassane Ouattara ended months of speculation and said he would not seek a controversial third term.

The choice of Amadou Gon Coulibaly, a close friend and confidant of the president, comes ahead of a challenging election for the West African country — the world’s top cocoa producer and home to more than 25 million people.

A 2010 vote ended in violence between rival political factions which left 3,000 people dead.

“I am aware of the magnitude of the responsibility and the magnitude of the burden,” Coulibaly said after being nominated late Thursday by the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace, or RHDP.

“I have appealed to all my sisters and brothers to be united,” he added. “We must win these elections in the first round.”

The constitution allows only two presidential terms, but Ouattara, 78, had said he would be able to stand due to a constitutional change in 2016 — a claim rejected by the opposition.

Analysts say it was essential to announce Ouattara’s choice of candidate quickly.

“The RHDP has stepped up the tempo to give Amadou Gon Coulibaly time to campaign and be visible,” said political scientist Jean Alabro.

“From the moment Ouattara was no longer a candidate, he had to readjust the strategy in order to mobilise around the new leader, and to remove any hint of another candidate,” added political scientist Arthur Banga.

– In president’s shadow –

While the choice of Coulibaly was not unexpected, the announcement — made without a vote and a week after Ouattara ruled out running in the October 31 race — came as a surprise.

The 61-year-old has spent his career in the shadow of the president.

“I’ve been learning alongside President Alassane Ouattara for 30 years,” he said Thursday.

He was the president’s secretary general from the time Ouattara came to power in 2010 until his appointment as prime minister in 2017.

Before that he was a senior civil servant and minister of agriculture. He was trained in France and, like Ouattara, has a good grasp of international finance.

“If we want our country to continue to evolve in the spirit of (Ouattara’s) governance, Gon (Coulibaly) is best placed,” said Hamed Bakayoko, the defence minister.

Coulibaly is from a large family in the country’s north and is very influential among traditional chiefs. He was mayor of Ivory Coast’s fourth-largest city, Korhogo, from 2001 to 2018.

Ouattara had kept Ivorians guessing over his political future, saying last year that he could run again if his traditional rivals were candidates.

Since the death of founding President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in 1993, Ivory Coast politics have been dominated by three men: Henri Konan Bedie, Laurent Gbagbo and Ouattara.

Gbagbo, who refused to step down after losing elections in 2010, was acquitted by the International Criminal Court last year on charges relating to the unrest triggered by his bid to cling on to power.

Bedie, who will be 86 during the October election, has not ruled out running.

Source:  AFP

Guinea’s President Alpha Conde announced a “slight postponement” of Sunday’s referendum on whether to adopt a new constitution, following mounting international criticism over the poll’s fairness.

The government argues that the draft constitution would, among other things, codify gender equality and ban female circumcision and underage marriage in the West African state.

But the proposal has sparked huge protests since October over fears that the real motive is to reset presidential term limits — allowing Conde, 81, to run for a third spell in office later this year.

Speaking on national television, the president said on Friday it was “due to our national and regional responsibilities that we have accepted a slight postponement of the date of the elections”.

“This is not a capitulation or a step backwards,” he said, adding that “the people of Guinea will express their choice freely at the referendum”.

While Conde did not publicly announce a date for the new vote, a letter from the leader to the West African bloc ECOWAS, seen by AFP, said the new poll should take place within two weeks.

The poll had been scheduled for Sunday alongside parliamentary elections — also delayed in the poor but mineral-rich country of some 13 million people, which has a legacy of autocratic rule.

The long-running demonstrations over the constitution issue have sometimes turned violent, with at least 30 protesters and one gendarme killed to date.

Conde’s announcement followed criticism of the electoral process from the African Union, European Union and The International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF), which gathers French-speaking states.

The OIF said this week it had problems with around 2.5 million of the 7.7 million names on the electoral roll, pointing to duplicate registrations and people who had died.

The African Union also cancelled an electoral observation mission to Guinea on Friday, citing a “major controversy” with the roll.

Meanwhile the EU said in a statement that a “lack of inclusiveness and transparency casts doubt on the credibility of the upcoming elections”.

Quiet streets

Sekou Conde, a cadre in the president’s Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) party, said the vote had been postponed purely for technical reasons.

“It has nothing to do with the electoral roll,” he said, adding that people had ransacked voting stations.

A Western diplomat, who declined to be named, said he thought the delay would make no difference anyway.

“This changes nothing,” he said, adding that there would be no credible change to the problems with the electoral roll within two weeks.

The streets of the capital Conakry were quiet on Friday evening after the announcement, despite months of protests.

Ibrahima Diallo, the operations manager for the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution — an alliance of opposition groups behind the protests — said that demonstrations would continue until Conde shelved the referendum.

Although both the current constitution and the proposed new text limit presidential terms to two, critics fear that passing a new constitution would reset presidential term limits to zero.

This would potentially allow Conde to run again when his second term runs out at the end of the year.

Conde was a longtime opposition figure who became the nation’s first democratically elected president in 2010 on promises to fight corruption. He was re-elected in 2015.

Source: AFP

Togolese president Faure Gnassingbé has won a fourth term in office, according to provisional results declared by the national election commission.

On Monday, the commission said he won 72 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential election.

“Based on all the data obtained from the local independent electoral commission and the independent embassy electoral commissions, the candidate of the Union for the Republic (UNIR) party, Mr. Gnassingbé Essozimna Faure is provisionally proclaimed elected president of the Togolese Republic”, Kodjona Kandaga, President of the National Electoral Commission said

According to the Togolese electoral commission, former Prime Minister, Agbeyome Kodjo, who served under the regime of Gnassingbé Eyadema, came in second with just 18 percent of votes on Saturday.

This widely anticipated win for the 53 year old extends the dynasty of the Gnassingbé‘s of the former French colony for more than a century.

Gnassingbé has led the country of 8 million people since he took over in 2005. This follows the death of his father, Gnassingbé Eyadema, who ruled the West African nation for 38 years.

The main opponent, Agbeyome Kodjo, who claimed victory after Saturday votes denounced vote irregularities in the capital, Lome.

AFP

Polling stations opened on Saturday morning in Togo where voters will choose their president in a ballot without much suspense as incumbent Faure Gnassingbé is expected to win a fourth term in office in the face of divided opposition.

Some 3.6 million voters are being called to the polls until 4 p.m. (1600 GMT) in some 9,000 polling stations across the country, but many of them have already announced that they want to boycott a poll they consider neither free nor transparent.

In Lomé, in the sandy courtyard of the Kodjoviakope high school where Jean-Pierre Fabre, the historic leader of the opposition, is expected to vote today, Eric, a driver in his thirties, arrived before 7 a.m. (local and GMT) to make sure he put his ballot in the ballot box before leaving for work.

“We are suffering too much in Togo, this time it has to change. I won’t tell you who I’m going to vote for but this time we don’t want to be robbed of victory,” he told AFP, adding that he would return to “watch the counting” in the evening.

In another office in the capital, Balakébawi Agbang, a supporter of Unir, the ruling party, invited his fellow citizens to “go out en masse to make the right choice”. “I voted for continuity, to allow Faure to continue the work he had started,” he said.

“The head of state’s supporters, recognizable by their sky blue T-shirts and caps, have continued to chant their main slogan in the streets of Lomé over the past few days to win the election in the first round.

The results are expected at the start of the week, according to sources in the Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni).

Seven Presidential candidates

Faure Gnassingbé, whose family has been at the head of this West African country for 53 years, is not expected to face any major obstacles to his re-election, having already won three elections contested by the opposition and civil society in 2005, 2010 and 2015.

He faces six other candidates, including historic opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre of the National Alliance for Change (ANC) and former Prime Minister Agbéyomé Kodjo, who could be an outsider despite his profile as a man of the seraglio.

The president can boast of a rather positive economic record, with stable growth of 5%, but his critics denounce authoritarian governance and the corruption of his entourage when half the population lives below the extreme poverty line, with less than $1.90 a day.

Togo also experienced a serious political crisis in 2017 and 2018 with monster demonstrations demanding the resignation of the president, but Parliament finally approved a constitutional amendment allowing him to stand for re-election in 2020 and 2025.

The opposition coalition, the C14, which led the protests, did not survive this failure and its leaders are therefore presenting themselves in a divided front for the vote.

Opposition candidates have warned, however, that they will unite to block Faure Gnassingbé in the event of a second round, but this scenario seems rather unlikely.

Defiant opposition

In the streets of Lomé, Sokodé (centre) and Dapaong (north), many said they were “disappointed” by the opposition and warned they would not vote.

Several opposition parties decided to boycott the elections and the lack of popular support dominated the entire campaign.

This week, 500 civil society observers lost their accreditation, accused of interfering in the electoral process, in addition to the 9,000 observers from the Episcopal Council for Justice and Peace who were also not allowed to monitor the vote.

David Dosseh of the Front citoyen Togo debout (FCTD), who accused the authorities of organising an election “behind closed doors”.

The president of Ceni, Tchambakou Ayassor, also announced on Thursday “the cancellation of the system of electronic security of voting results” which should be done through a software called “SINCERE”, fuelling doubts and speculation on the holding of a free and transparent election.

Some 315 international observers, mainly from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU), will however be present, even if the outgoing president is supported by many of his African peers.

France, a former colonial power, a traditional ally of the Gnassingbé dynasty and present in the neighbouring Sahel in the fight against jihadist movements, is particularly sensitive to Togo’s stability in this volatile region.

Source: Africa News

South Sudan President Salva Kiir will on Friday formally appoint rebel leader Riek Machar as vice president, ahead of a swearing-in ceremony on Saturday, the information minister said.

Kiir had initially said his longtime rival would be sworn-in on Friday, after the two men finally agreed to form a long-delayed unity government — a crucial step towards ending more than six years of war.

However Information Minister Michael Makuei told AFP that the oath had been pushed back to Saturday.

“Today (Friday) his excellency the president will issue a presidential decree for the appointment of the vice presidents and the dissolution of all institutions at national and state levels,” he said.

Machar is to be the first of five vice-presidents in a bloated cabinet to accommodate various warring parties.

But aside from Machar, consensus has only been reached on three other deputies.

“The vice presidents will take oath tomorrow and thereafter we will continue to process the appointments of the cabinet and appointment of the governors of the 10 states and three chief administrators of the three administrative areas,” said Makuei.

Saturday is the third deadline for the formation of the unity government which was agreed upon in a September 2018 peace deal, but pushed back as crucial issues had yet to be dealt with.

Key among these were the delineation of state boundaries, formation of a unified national army and security arrangements for Machar, who has been living in exile since 2016.

A last-minute deal on the number of states was achieved, although little progress has been made on the other issues.

The leaders have come under increased pressure in recent weeks both from regional heads of state and main donor, the United States, to form the government.

A compromise by Kiir to cut to 10 the number of states, which he increased unilaterally to 32 after independence, was seen as key in moving towards the creation of the government.

However the opposition remains reticent about an additional three “administrative areas” pushed through by Kiir.

Machar spokesman Manawa Peter Gatkuoth said the two men would “continue to solve the problem” after the government is formed.

“This is a major step forward, if indeed they form the government as they say,” Alan Boswell, a South Sudan expert with the International Crisis Group (ICG) told AFP.

“Kiir’s compromise on the states issue paved the way for the two sides to finally move forward, even if the parties have much more to work through in the coming weeks, months, and years.”

Several heads of state are expected to attend the inauguration, although no names have been confirmed.

Source:  AFP

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and ex-vice president and opposition leader Riek Machar agreed Thursday to form a unity government on Saturday, a long-delayed step towards ending six years of war.

“We have agreed to form the government in two days on 22nd February. We are still discussing on other things and I am hopeful we will resolve them all,” Machar said after a meeting between the two men.

Kiir confirmed that they had agreed to join together for the third time in government – an experiment which has twice previously ended in disaster.

It was a dispute between the two men which pushed the young nation into war in December 2013, only two years after a hard-fought independence.

“As the president, I will be appointing the vice presidents, and I will start by appointing Riek tomorrow (Friday) in the morning and I will dissolve the government today and then form a new government on the 22nd,” Kiir said.

“These are changes which will bring peace.”

Unity government delayed twice

The formation of a unity government was a linchpin of a September 2018 peace deal.

But it has been delayed twice by failure to move forward on crucial issues such as forming a unified army, carving out state borders and creating a protection force to ensure Machar’s security.

Kiir said his forces would be in charge of security in Juba, South Sudan’s capital, as well as Machar’s protection.

“I have taken responsibility of protection, as the unified forces are still under training,” he said.

He urged some 190,000 people living under United Nations protection in tent cities in the capital and across the nation – many of whom have lived there for several years – “to come out, because the dawn of peace has come”.

The United States, which has curbed relations with South Sudan over its political impasse, on Thursday welcomed the deal on reaching the unity government.

“We welcome Dr. Machar’s firm commitment to form an inclusive unity government by February 22,” Tibor Nagy, the top US diplomat for Africa, wrote on Twitter.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Rebels in South Sudan have rejected a peace proposal by the president that would have seen the country returning to an original system of ten states plus three new regions.

President Salva Kiir on Saturday proposed that the county be divided in the original 10 states, as had been demanded by the rebels, plus the three “administrative areas” of Pibor, Ruweng, and Abyei.

The offer was however rejected by rebel leader Riek Machar, who objected to the idea of the three new areas.

Machar, who lives in exile, called on the president “to reconsider this idea of creating administrative areas.” It “cannot be referred to as reverting to 10 states (and) as such cannot be accepted,” Machar said.

When it gained independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan had 10 states, as set out in its constitution. The president increased the number of the states to 28 in 2015, and then to 32.

Kiir issued an order late Saturday relieving all governors of the 32 states of their posts and changed the number of the states back to 10, plus the three areas.

Among the three regions, Ruweng in the north, which is believed to be rich in oil resources, is claimed by both Kiir’s Dinka people and Machar’s Nuer tribe.

South Sudan was gripped by a bloody civil war only two years after independence in December 2013. The two sides have been involved in a cycle of attacks and retaliatory killings. Tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced so far.

Both sides have been under pressure from the international community to resolve their differences.

Source: Presstv

Sudan’s transitional government appears prepared to hand former President Omar al-Bashir over to the International Criminal Court to be tried for war crimes and genocide allegedly committed during his regime’s long, scorched-earth campaign in the country’s Darfur region. The decision is reportedly part of a potential peace agreement with rebel groups still operating in Darfur. It could be an unexpected boon for the beleaguered ICC, but only if the military members of the transitional government in Khartoum don’t renege on the deal.

The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 when rebels there launched an insurgency against Bashir’s oppressive regime. Bashir relied heavily on pro-government, Arab militias known as the Janjaweed to quash the rebels. The Janjaweed were accused of mass killings of civilians and other atrocities, including rape and torture. In 2009, the ICC indicted Bashir for his alleged role; he faces five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of war crimes and three counts of genocide.

The transitional government that took power last year, after Bashir was deposed by the military amid Sudan’s popular uprising, has prioritized ending the internal conflicts that had flared up under his regime. During negotiations this week with Darfuri rebels in Juba, South Sudan, Mohammed Hassan al-Taishi, a member of the transitional authority that is made up of military and civilian leaders, announced that it is prepared to hand over everyone indicted by the ICC for committing atrocities in Darfur. In addition to Bashir, who is currently serving two years in a reform facility after being convicted on corruption charges in December, that includes former Defense Minister Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein and a former senior security chief, Ahmed Haroun, who are both currently under arrest in Khartoum.

“We can only achieve justice if we heal the wounds with justice itself,” al-Taishi said. “We cannot escape from confronting that.” He said the government and rebels will also establish a special domestic court for crimes committed in Darfur.

The transitional government’s decision is also significant for the ICC. Bashir flouted his ICC indictment for years, including an infamous 2015 trip to an African Union meeting in Johannesburg. As an ICC signatory, South Africa was compelled to hand him over to the court, but instead, officials there allowed him to leave the country. Bashir’s defiance, along with a series of other setbacks for the ICC that WPR documented last year, contributed to a sense of irrelevancy in The Hague. A long overdue trial of Bashir offers ICC prosecutors an opportunity to deliver international justice and restore the court’s reputation.

If Bashir makes it to The Hague, that is. There is little consensus on anything within the transitional government, fueling concern that its military members could go against their civilian counterparts and quash the arrangement. “Not only do both camps have radically different visions for the future of Sudan, they are sharply divided among themselves,” Richard Downie explained in a briefing in November. Sudan’s top military general, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, tried to allay those concerns when he assured a human rights group this week he would “cooperate fully” with the ICC as it attempts to bring Bashir to trial.

Source: World Politics Review