BAMAKO, Mali, November 25, 2013/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Head of ECOWAS Election Observation Mission (EOM), Prof. Amos Sawyer has commended Malians for their orderly conduct during balloting on Sunday to fill the country’s 147-seat parliament.
The legislative election is the last stage of the political transition process facilitated by ECOWAS to restore constitutional order and the country’s territorial integrity after its 10-month political and security crises.
“The electoral process today has been orderly, security and the general atmosphere is fine and the preparation has been very good,” Prof. said after observing the elections in several voting centres in the Bamako municipalities, accompanied by a delegation that included Ambassador Aboudou Toure Cheaka, ECOWAS Commission President’s Special Representative to Mali.
The Head of Mission also commended the noticeable improvement in the delivery of poll materials and expressed the hope that the process would gather momentum for successful poll after a slow start.
The Hamallaye Marchie Polling centre with 59 polling stations in Bamako’s Community IV was his first port of call, where the polling Coordinator Souleymane Kanoute informed the head of the regional observer mission that the voter turn-out was expected to improve after a handful of voters had cast their ballots by 8.30 AM, thirty minutes after official opening of the process.
The polling official also observed that although the legislative poll is closer to the people, the general expectation is that the turn-out would not be as high as in the recent presidential election in the country of 16.5 million with 6.5 million registered voters.
A similar slow start to the process was noted at the Groupe Scolaire Aminata Diop, also in Bamako Community IV as well as Mairie Centrale de Bamako polling centre in Community III, and Lycee Sacre Coer ACI in Community V.
Of the 446 registered voters at polling station 003 in Community III, some 40 had cast their ballots by 12.09 PM, while in polling station 009, fifty of the 472 registered voters had voted by 12.30 PM.
Members of the 100-strong ECOWAS Observation Mission have been deployed across Mali’s eight regions including Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu in the north, as well as the six Bamako Communities.
Voting ended at 6 PM in the more than 20,000 polling centres nationwide with some 1,141 candidates from the ruling party and opposition coalitions and independents, vying for the National Assembly seats.
Prof. Sawyer and his delegation returned to Groupe Scolaire Aminata Diop centre with 18 polling stations to observe the counting of votes.
Polling official Mohamed Lamine Idrissa and his colleagues in the presence of agents of candidates and observers recorded 80 votes or 16.5 percent turn-out from the 484 registered voters at polling station 067. The ruling party, RPM polled 20 of the total 80 votes, while the opposition UDR got 16 votes.
The ECOWAS observation mission is expected to issue its Preliminary
Report on the elections on Monday.
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