BAMAKO (Reuters) - In the five years since Malians last chose a president, they have suffered violence from Islamist militants, Tuareg separatists, drug traffickers, ethnic vigilantes and Malian security forces.

Yet when it comes to elections, power has tended to be contested peacefully in the West African republic, and diplomatic pressure is aimed at keeping to keep it that way when its citizens go to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to give President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita a second term or hand the top job to one of his rivals.

“Mali has demonstrated the capacity over the years to deliver credible and peaceful elections,” Mohamed Ibn Chambas, United Nations Special Representative to West Africa and the Sahel region, told Reuters at his office in the Senegalese capital, Dakar.

“My plea is that candidates again show high responsibility,” he added. “We cannot afford a political crisis in Mali on top of the security crisis the country is already facing.”

Eight million people are registered to vote, with polls opening at 8 a.m. (0800 GMT) and closing at six (1800 GMT).

Keita, 73, universally known as IBK, runs for re-election amid a mounting death toll from jihadist attacks, ethnic killings and armed forces abuses that have become a defining feature of his presidency, despite thousands of French troops deployed since 2013 to contain the violence.

He faces two dozen candidates of which only one, Soumaila Cisse, 68, is seen as having a strong chance of ousting him. Both men are from the Saharan nation’s political elite, and IBK beat Cisse in a run-off at the 2013 poll.

Both held final rallies attracting thousands of people on Friday night.

“There is still a lot to do. That’s why I am soliciting the Malian people to give us another term, not because I’m thirsty for power,” Keita said at a rally on a leafy square on the banks of the Niger river.

“Everywhere I’ve been I see a desire for change. Malians want nothing more to do with this regime,” Cisse told his supporters at his party headquarters.

All candidates have promised to reverse Mali’s decline and help end pervasive poverty. Mali is 14th from the bottom on the U.N. Human Development Index, despite being Africa’s third biggest gold exporter and a major cotton grower.

A billboard in the exhaust fume-choked capital Bamako depicts Keita in flowing white robes and a skull cap, urging Malians to “consolidate the peace.”

Yet since he has been in power, violence has worsened. Civil society website Malilink recorded 932 attacks in the first half of 2018, almost double that for all of 2017 and triple 2015.

In the north, where French troops stepped in to halt a Tuareg rebellion and jihadi takeover before the last poll, jihadists have killed more than 160 U.N. peacekeepers.

Timbuktu, once a Sahara desert tourist spot, is unstable, hit by Islamist militants as well as tensions between Arab and Tuareg traders and black Malians from the south.

Islamist violence has also spread to central Mali, where militants have attacked the pan-regional G5 Sahel force. Killings have begun to take on an ethnic tone, as the Islamists exploit tensions over access to land and water.

Human Rights groups have unearthed evidence that Malian troops were implicated in mass graves in central Mali. The Defence Ministry pledged to investigate.

Keita has played down the country’s security woes.

“There are pockets of violence, residues of terrorism that even (French forces) ... haven’t managed to vanquish from Malian soil,” he said after a tour of Mali’s diaspora, one of about 150 costly foreign trips that have been criticised by opponents since he took office.

“Are you going to blame all that on IBK?”

Whoever is to blame, the violence could deter many from voting in a nation with consistently the lowest turnout in West Africa - about 40 percent on average.

“Violence in the Mopti region and northern region is really going to depress turnout,” said U.S. researcher Bruce Whitehouse.

Discontent with IBK is palpable, and thousands protested against him in Bamako last month. Yet he has the benefit of incumbency and is likely to win, although probably only in a second round, diplomats say.

Though most expect a smooth election, there is a risk of a disputed poll turning violent. Opposition candidates are crying foul over alleged tampering with the electoral list.

“I’m sad to see a government that cheats, to see an electoral fraud in the offing,” Cisse told Reuters after his rally. “But we don’t have a plan-B. We must go the polls.”

If Mali can avoid a rancorous dispute over the result, that will sooth anxieties.

“That’s the metric the international community will use: ‘there you go, we had a peaceful election’,” Adam Thiam, a Malian analyst told Reuters in Bamako.

“This election is all about showing Mali is stabilising.” </s> Thousands of Malians voted in presidential elections Sunday in the capital, but others struggled in parts of the country’s north where some ballot boxes were burned and in the central region where voters feared threats by extremist groups.

Polls closed Sunday and officials began counting the votes. Results are expected within the week. If no candidate wins more than 50 per cent in the first round, Malians will vote in a second round on Aug. 12.

Voters have expressed concern about being targeted after al Qaeda’s Mali branch warned for months against going to the polls. Deadly communal clashes between ethnic groups and accusations of heavy-handed counterterror operations have complicated what President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita hopes will be an election victory leading him to a second term.

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The 73-year-old, who was elected in 2013, faces 23 candidates in the first round.

As he voted in Bamako, Keita commended Malians on a successful and peaceful day of voting.

“It is a real pleasure for me to perform this citizen act, and it is the start of victory for the people of Mali, who have voted in calm and serenity,” he said. “This vote will have demonstrated our democratic maturity and our status as a great people.”

His main challenger is 68-year-old Soumaila Cisse, his rival in 2013, who has criticized the president for not addressing Mali’s rising insecurity.

No polling stations opened in some central Mali Fulani villages under the control of jihadists, including Yamassadiou and Onde. And despite the presence of Mali’s army in Boulikessi, stations didn’t open there, said a security official in the region who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t permitted to speak to the press.

Only a few stations were closed in Douentza district in Mali’s central Mopti region, where armed men kidnapped the head of a polling station in Gandamia village, the official said. Though that particular station reopened, people fear going to the polls.

Opposition leader Cisse, who voted in his village, Niafounke in the Timbuktu region, said that in Dianke, ballot boxes were taken away. He also said that ballot materials for another village Berre, remained in Timbuktu.

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“Despite the difficulties of insecurity and transport, it was a duty for me to come and vote here with the people who trust me,” Cisse said. “Malians must vote, it is very important. Each Malian must also be vigilant against attempts of electoral fraud. There must be transparency.”

Several political parties have expressed doubts about a valid election after duplicate and fictitious polling stations were listed on the electoral commission’s website.

More than 8 million voters are registered.

The government and the electoral commission have promised a smooth vote, but many in Mali are still worried about postelection violence should Keita win in the first round.

“I voted, but all that people are saying is worrying me. I do hope there won’t be an election crisis,” said 67-year-old Ibrahim Traore.

Experts say Mali is less secure than in 2013, when French-backed forces pushed extremists in the north from their strongholds.

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A more assertive response by Mali’s security forces to the attacks has led to accusations by human rights groups of extrajudicial killings. In some areas neighbours have turned on each other, amid suspicions of influence by extremist groups.

Oumar Toure, a leader of a local civic association in Mopti, said things have shifted there.

“The current president IBK considers Mopti region his enemy, and he left it ... that’s why all the insecurity of the north has come to settle here,” said Toure. “In Mopti, it’s the law of the strongest.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Malians to maintain a peaceful course and said in a statement Saturday he was encouraged by a peaceful campaigning period, despite security challenges in the north and centre.

“The Secretary-General urges all political actors in Mali to commit to making this poll a peaceful, free and transparent process, and to resolve any possible dispute through the appropriate institutions in accordance with the law,” his statement said.

Meanwhile, Iyad Ag Ghaley, the leader of al Qaeda’s Mali branch known by its French acronym JNIM, sent a message on Telegram and Twitter saying that his organization opposes the elections. </s> BAMAKO (Reuters): In the five years since Malians last chose a president, they’ve suffered violence from Islamist militants, Tuareg separatists, drug traffickers, ethnic vigilantes and Malian security forces. Yet when it comes to elections, power has tended to be contested peacefully in Mali and diplomatic pressure will aim to keep it that way when its citizens go to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to give President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita a second term or hand the top job to one of his rivals.

“Mali has demonstrated the capacity over the years to deliver credible and peaceful elections, among the best in the region,” Mohamed Ibn Chambas, UN Special Representative to West Africa and the Sahel region, told Reuters at his office in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. “My plea is that candidates again show high responsibility,” he added. “We cannot afford a political crisis in Mali on top of the security crisis the country is already facing.” </s> Gunmen attacked a convoy carrying election materials in central Mali, triggering a shootout in which four soldiers and eight attackers were killed, a Defence Ministry spokesman said by telephone on Wednesday.

The spokesman said the attack occurred late on Tuesday on the road between Nampala and Coura in the south-central region of Segou, giving no further details.

The party of Malian presidential candidate Soumaila Cisse said on Monday that the poll would go to a run-off between Cisse and President Ibrahim Keita, a day after a vote that was heavily disrupted by suspected Islamist gunmen.

Cisse’s campaign manager, Tiebele Drame, made the announcement at the party’s headquarters in Bamako, the capital.

Keita’s spokesman said the president was substantially in the lead according to provisional vote count, although he accepted that a run-off was possible.

Spiralling jihadist violence has become a key issue in the campaign, as attacks multiply and the death toll mounts across north and central Mali.

“The law forbids the proclamation of results by anyone except the Ministry of Territorial Administration,” Drame told a news conference.

“However, I can tell you that we are going to a second round between Soumaila Cisse and Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.”

Mahamadou Camara, the spokesman for Keita, said, “According to our tally, IBK has come substantially ahead,” using the popular nickname for the president, taken from his initials.

The exact numbers of voters who were disenfranchised by violence is not known, but they could easily become a flashpoint if the vote is close.

Ministry of Territorial Administration figures showed that, of the roughly 23,000 polling stations that were meant to open, 4,632 were disrupted by “armed attacks or other violence,” of which 644 were unable to operate.

In most of Mali, the vote was peaceful and relatively well organised, with polls opening and closing on time.

Most people who were enrolled and turned up were able to vote.

In the mud-walled medieval city of Timbuktu, once a flourishing tourist spot before Islamist militants made it too dangerous, witnesses said gunmen had intimidated voters, seized ballot boxes and in some cases set fire to them in the few polling stations that were attacked outside town.

NAN reports that Islamist militants took over northern cities like Timbuktu in 2012 on the back of a Tuareg rebellion, imposing Sharia law with harsh penalties like cutting off fingers for smoking, until France intervened a year later to push them back.

The Islamist militants regard democracy as an un-Islamic Western imposition.

Since Keita came to power in the 2013 poll, Islamist violence has swept south into Mali’s fertile centre.

UN mission chief Mahamat Annadif on Friday urged whoever wins the poll to urgently address jihadist-stoked ethnic violence in Mali’s central “breadbasket.”

The figures from the ministry showed that the central region of Mopti accounted for half of polling stations under attack.

Hamid Bore, 39, a teacher, was in charge of one such station in the village of Dembere.

The militants arrived just as polls opened at 8 a.m. (0800 GMT), he said.

At a news conference, the head of the European Union observer mission welcomed the decision to make public the number of polling stations that had not been able to function but urged it to publish more precise information about which ones exactly.

Cisse’s campaign has repeatedly accused Keita of tampering with the electoral list to try to steal the election.

The UN is heaping pressure on all sides to accept the result — or at least contest it through legal channels — to avert a political crisis on top of the security woes the country is already facing. </s> NOUAKCHOTT - Mauritanian voters went to the polls Saturday in the country’s first election without an incumbent presidential candidate since the 2008 coup.

Polling stations closed at 7 p.m. across the Sahara Desert nation, and preliminary results are expected late in the evening.

Though voters were mobilized for these elections, seen as significant in the country’s democratic history, many are wary that the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI), which earlier this year refused appeals to employ foreign observers, may not hold fair elections.

American embassy staff were among those in Nouakchott surveying polling stations across the capital.

“We’ve got 10 teams who have been out ever since the polls opened at 7 this morning, doing observations in various polling stations throughout the city,” U.S. Ambassador to Mauritania Michael Dodman told VOA.

“We’ll wait and see what the results are, we’ll wait and see what the experts … have to say. And we just hope that it all moves forward peacefully, quickly, and that this transfer of power really is a positive step for Mauritanian democracy,” he added.

Along with American embassy staff, local observers went to polling stations across the capital Saturday.

Local lawyer Fatimata M’Baye told VOA that she noticed some irregularities, namely that some voters were turned away and were told they needed to provide their voter registration number and not just an identification. M’Baye says that these numbers are only available online, and some people were unable to retrieve them in time to vote.

“I think these are questions that should have been addressed before election day,” M’Baye said, adding that she thinks the issue is more negligence by the CENI as opposed to obstruction.

“I think that in the future, the CENI needs to be much better prepared to allow the Mauritanian people to vote in peace,” she said.

According to a Gallup poll, 64% of Mauritanians do not have faith in the honesty of the elections.

When asked who they believe will win the election, many voters VOA spoke with in Nouakchott preceded their answer with “If the state doesn’t cheat. ..."

President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz is stepping down, as is mandated by the constitution, after his two five-year terms. His ruling Union for the Republic (UPR) party has put forth former Defense Minister Mohamed Ould Ghazouani as its candidate.

Opposition candidates say that Ghazouani would not affect any change from the last administration -- change they say is desperately needed.

“I think there needs to be a true changeover, because the state today of my country is catastrophic. The economic situation is extremely serious, as are our societal problems,” Sidi Mohammed Ould Boubacar, a former prime minister and leading opposition candidate supported by the Tewassoul party, told VOA.

Boubacar is one of five opposition candidates running to replace the UPR. Other candidates include well-known anti-slavery activist Biram Dah Abeid, who has promised a national inquiry into the country’s cases of modern slavery.

The country’s last elections in 2014 were heavily criticized for being unfair and were boycotted by many opposition parties. Then-incumbent President Aziz won by 84%.

Mauritania has had five military coups since it gained independence from France in 1960. </s> Polls opened Sunday in the tiny archipelago of Comoros, with President Azali Assoumani widely expected to win a new term in an election that rivals say has been hijacked.

Some 300,000 voters are expected to turn out, with polling stations opening at 8:00 am (0500 GMT).

“We need real change in this country, not empty words. We need peace, security and progress,” said Mohamed Chaine, 38, one of the first to vote in the capital, Moroni.

“I hope my choice will be respected,” said Allaoui Elarif, 70. “I don’t expect any trouble, demonstrations here. It is afterwards, at the election commission where I am afraid they will cheat.”

Huge campaign pictures of Azali, 60, emblazon the whitewashed walls of the capital Moroni and along roads on the three islands of Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli.

Those of his rivals are minute — a comparison that seems to speak eloquently for their chances.

The Supreme Court has barred the bid of some of Azali’s major rivals, including former president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, accused of corruption.

In a pre-election visit to Anjouan, Azali oozed confidence and burst out laughing when asked about defeat.

“That’s a question I won’t answer. When you set out to do something, you do it to win!”

The mainly-Muslim Indian Ocean archipelago of some 800,000 people is one of the world’s poorest and most coup-prone states.

It has suffered more than 20 successful or attempted power grabs since gaining independence from France in 1975. Its first leader, Ahmed Abdallah, lasted barely a month before being ousted.

Azali is staging the poll after Comorans voted in a referendum to support the extension of presidential mandates from one five-year term to two, rotating among the three islands.

The controversial change shocked a fragile balance of power established in 2001 that sought to end separatist crises on Anjouan and Moheli and halt the endless cycle of coups.

The opposition fears that Azali, a native of Grande Comore and last elected in 2016, could hold power for 10 more years until 2029.

The referendum last July led to violent protests on Anjouan, which would have taken over the presidency in 2021.

The head of the Union of the Opposition group, former deputy president Mohamed Ali Soilihi, is one of the candidates who has been barred from running.

“This election is a great masquerade. The plot has been written out in advance. On the evening of March 24, there’ll be an announcement of victory (for Azali) in the first round,” Soilihi predicted. “It’ll be forced through.”

“Everyone is against him,” said the leader of the Juwa Party, lawyer Mahamoudou Ahamada. “If the vote were transparent, he couldn’t win. Azali has no choice but to steal the election.”

Azali, a former army chief of staff, first seized power in a coup in April 1999.

He toppled an interim president he saw as weak in handling secessionist forces and then was elected in 2002.

Earlier this month, according to his staff, Azali survived an attempt on his life on Anjouan.

“People at the top of a mountain placed explosives, which they blew up to cause a rockslide” as his convoy passed, his campaign director, Houmed Msaidie, told AFP on March 7. “The president’s car stopped in time.”

Wires connected to dynamite were found at the scene, Msaidie said. Photos sent to AFP by a police official showed tree branches and rocks partially covering a road.

Juwa campaign director Ibrahim Mohamed Soule said Azali’s team “creates fake attacks or fake incidents to deter people from participating in the elections freely”.

In March 2008, Comoran troops backed by an African Union military force invaded Anjouan to put an end to the authoritarian rule of island leader Mohamed Bacar.

The one-time police chief was accused of atrocities including killings, torture and rape, as well as embezzlement, but he escaped.

The Comoros has tried repeatedly to lay claim at the UN General Assembly to the fourth and wealthiest island in their archipelago, Mayotte, whose inhabitants chose in a 1974 referendum to remain a French territory.

The gap in development has drawn many Comoran “boat people” to Mayotte in search of a better life. </s> Polls closed Sunday on the tiny archipelago of Comoros with President Azali Assoumani widely expected to win a new term in an election that rivals say has been hijacked.

The main opposition, however, alleged after the polls closed at 6 pm (1500 GMT) that irregularities at several polling stations reported by the electoral commission amounted to a "coup d'etat" and called for public "resistance".

"We candidates declare the current government illegitimate... (we) call on the people to resist and mobilise against it," the head of the Union of the Opposition group, former deputy president Soihili Mohamed told journalists on Moroni island.

Accompanied by around 30 supporters, seven candidates marched on the National Assembly, which houses the national counting centre, to "prevent ballot boxes from reaching (the capital) Moroni", Mahamoudou Ahamada, a candidate for the opposition party Juwa said.

Some 300,000 voters had been expected to turn out for the vote.

Azali confirmed but played down sporadic incidents after voting at a school in Mitsoudje on the main island Grande Comore.

"I've been told there have been some problems -- it's not a surprise," he said.

"We were aware during the campaign there are some people who were not out there to win but to prevent the vote taking place.

"The situation is under control", he said, adding he was "confident" of winning.

An electoral commission official told AFP a dozen booths had been vandalised on Anjouan while witnesses said several stuffed ballot boxes had been found and some opposition poll assessors had been prevented from going about their duties.

"Given that my delegates have been prevented from entering polling stations.... I shall never recognise the results," Juwa's Ahamada said after voting on Grande Comore.

"We need real change in this country, not empty words. We need peace, security and progress," said Mohamed Chaine, 38, a voter in Moroni said.

"I hope my choice will be respected," said Allaoui Elarif, 70. "I don't expect any trouble, demonstrations here. It is afterwards, at the election commission where I am afraid they will cheat."

Huge campaign posters emblazoned with the face of Azali, 60, cover the whitewashed walls in the capital Moroni and line roads on the three islands of Grande Comore, Anjouan and Moheli.

The Supreme Court has barred some of Azali's major rivals, including former president Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, accused of corruption, from running.

In a pre-election visit to Anjouan, Azali oozed confidence and burst out laughing when asked about defeat.

"That's a question I won't answer. When you set out to do something, you do it to win!" he said.

The mainly Muslim Indian Ocean archipelago of 800,000 people is one of the world's poorest and most coup-prone states.

It has suffered more than 20 successful or attempted power grabs since gaining independence from France in 1975. Its first leader, Ahmed Abdallah, lasted barely a month before being ousted.

Azali is staging the poll after Comorans voted in a referendum, boycotted by the opposition, to support the extension of presidential mandates from one five-year term to two, rotating among the three islands.

The change upset a fragile balance of power established in 2001 that sought to end separatist crises on Anjouan and Moheli and halt the endless cycle of coups.

The opposition fears that Azali, a native of Grande Comore and last elected in 2016, could hold power for 10 more years until 2029.

The referendum last July led to violent protests on Anjouan, which would have taken over the presidency in 2021.

Soilihi Mohamed, one of those who has been barred from running, dismissed the election as a "great masquerade".

"The plot has been written out in advance. On the evening of March 24, there'll be an announcement of victory (for Azali) in the first round," Soilihi predicted. "It'll be forced through."

"Everyone is against him," Ahamada said.

Azali, a former army chief of staff, first seized power in a coup in April 1999.

He toppled an interim president he saw as weak in handling secessionist forces and then was elected in 2002.

Earlier this month, according to his staff, Azali survived an attempt on his life on Anjouan in which plotters used explosives to cause a rockslide targeting his motorcade.

His critics dismiss this account as bogus.

Juwa campaign director Ibrahim Mohamed Soule said Azali's team "creates fake attacks or fake incidents to deter people from participating in the elections freely". </s> Senegalese voters cast ballots Sunday to elect a new parliament, a test run for President Macky Sall ahead of a 2019 presidential election and after a campaign marred by violence and tensions. Most of the 14,000 polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0800 GMT) but there were delays in several places after some sites were hit by a violent overnight storm, local media reported. Polling ends at 6:00 pm and the first results are expected early Monday. More than 6.2 million people in the west African nation are registered to vote.

 Sall is seeking to bolster his parliamentary majority as he eyes a second term, while his predecessor Abdoulaye Wade, 91, attempts to drum up support for his own list of candidates and for his son, Karim, who is waiting in the wings with eyes on the top job. “We aren’t talking any longer about July 30, but of 2019,” Prime Minister Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne, who is running for a seat with Sall’s coalition, declared at a rally. In a sign of growing tensions, Interior Minister Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo banned inter-regional travel on Sunday until midnight.—Agencies </s> Presidential elections are taking place in the Comoros Islands for the first time since a referendum to increase term limits.

Previously the presidency was rotated around the three Indian Ocean Islands every five years - a system which was put in place to stop constant coups.

Thanks to the referendum outcome, President Azali Assoumani is able to run for re-election.

He is running against 12 opponents but is widely expected to win.

The Supreme Court barred some of Mr Azali's rivals including the former President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi, who is accused of corruption.

The opposition have reported irregularities in Sunday's vote.

A dozen polling stations have been ransacked on the Anjouan island, an official from the electoral commission told AFP news agency.

Witnesses told AFP that the polling stations were attacked after people found filled ballot boxes.

Last year there were violent protests when the referendum put an end to the system of rotating power every five years among the archipelago's three main islands.

The arrangement had been put in place to promote stability in a country that has had more than 20 coup attempts since its independence in 1975.

Now presidents can run for two terms.

If there is no clear winner, a run-off election will be held on 21 April.
Malians go to the polls to elect a president.