Mali
"ATT" to become new Malian President

afrol News, 15 May  - Opposition candidate and former transitional President Amadou Toumani Touré ("ATT") seems to be winning Sunday's second round of the presidential elections in Mali. As most votes are counted, "ATT" has received 68.35 percent of the votes while Soumaïla Cissé, the ruling ADEMA party's candidate, received 31.65 percent of the vote. 

Touré had been supported by most of the 22 other opposition candidates that lost out in the first poll round. As the Ministry of Home Affairs publishes its first results today - having counted 70 percent of the votes - "ATT" seems set to become Mali's next president. 

The 53-years-old popular ex-President - nick-named "ATT" in Mali - had gathered 28.70 of the votes in the first poll round, which had to be ruled on by the Malian Constitutional Court after opposition candidates claimed the vote was rigged. Complaints were however against the ADEMA party and its candidate Cissé. After main opposition candidate Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta accepted the court's recount, he urged his followers to vote for "ATT". 

In fact, opposition support for "ATT" had been close to general. Almost 40 Malian parties urged their followers to vote for Touré. Word in Bamako has it that even incumbent President Alpha Oumar Konaré had supported Touré, despite belonging to the ADEMA party. Cissé finally complained that everybody had turned against him. 

General Touré has been a popular person in Mali for years. Touré restored democracy in 1992, after he had disposed of military dictator Moussa Traoré in a military coup. Heading a transitional committee, Touré helped prepare the first democratic elections in Mali's history in 1992, where incumbent President Konaré first came to power. Since then, he has been a highly profiled benefactor and is seen as a man of high personal integrity, proven by the fact that he did not run for president in 1992. This is indeed the first time Touré has run for any public office. 

His lack of personal ambitions in 1992 earned "ATT" his other nick-name; "the soldier for democracy". His election campaign had also focused of the issue of the need for national unity to address the important question of economic development. 

Cissé was the official candidate of the government party Alliance for Malian Democracy (ADEMA). Cissé resigned from his post as Infrastructure Minister to be able to contest the poll, following the regulations of Mali's electoral rules. With the support of the ADEMA government, Cissé managed to arrange the most costly and visible election campaign throughout Mali. Cissé's bureaucratic image and him being a part of Bamako's high governmental circles - popularly perceived as corrupt - however spoke against him.

The turnout had been surprisingly low in Sunday's presidential elections, which had been organised to give a voting possibility to all citizens of the dispersed country. In Bamako, fewer than 20 percent of registered voters cast their ballots in the second round. The preliminary numbers for all Mali indicate a turnout of only 38 percent. 

While "ATT" now seems set to become Mali's next president, it is however questionable whether he will be able to maintain his high personal popularity. Poverty is abundant in this vast country poor on natural resources and no immediate cure seems in sight; mirrored by voters' apathy on Sunday. Also, the support of almost the entire Malian opposition in the second round is expected to cost a heavy price, as all now will be asking to be rewarded with positions and favours in the new government. 

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