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presidential poll
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has won Mali’s presidential election after his rival Soumaila Cisse admitted defeat in the second round.
Ex-Finance Minister Soumaila Cisse said he had congratulated Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and wished him good luck, AFP reported.
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, 68, served as prime minister from 1994 to 2000.
Mali has suffered a year of unrest including a military coup and a French-led military intervention to oust Islamist rebels from the north.
No official results have yet been released following Sunday’s runoff, however, reports had put Ibrahim Boubacar Keita well ahead.
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has won Mali’s presidential election after his rival Soumaila Cisse admitted defeat in the second round
In the first round Soumaila Cisse polled just 19% against Ibrahim Boubacar Keita’s 40% and most of the other candidates then gave Keita their endorsements.
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita – known as IBK – will now oversee more than $4 billion in foreign aid promised to rebuild the West African state.
A 12,600-strong United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Mali (Minusma) is currently deploying, as France begins to withdraw its 3,000 troops.
After the first round Soumaila Cisse had complained of widespread fraud, with more than 400,000 ballots declared spoiled.
However, Mali’s Constitutional Court rejected the allegations and the head of the EU election observer mission, Louis Michel, praised the electoral process for its transparency.
On Monday, observers from the EU and the African Union again praised the way the second round was carried out.
“Malians should be congratulated because it seems to me they are regaining control of their democratic destiny, which is in fact nevertheless a tradition that exists in Mali,” said Louis Michel.
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Uhuru Kenyatta has fairly won the country’s presidential election, Kenya’s Supreme Court has ruled today rejecting several petitions challenging the vote.
Chief Justice Willy Mutunga announced the decision, saying the poll was free and fair.
The appeal was lodged by PM Raila Odinga, Uhuru Kenyatta’s main rival in the presidential poll this month.
Kenya’s Supreme Court has upheld Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential election victory
Official results said Uhuru Kenyatta beat Raila Odinga by 50.07% to 43.28%, avoiding a run-off by just 8,100 votes.
There is tight security at the Supreme Court. Violence after a disputed election in 2007 left more than 1,200 people dead.
The presidential, legislative and municipal elections held on March 4 were the first since the 2007 poll.
Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate, William Ruto, are facing trial on charges of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly fuelling unrest after that election. They deny the charges.
There was tight security for the court decision, with all roads leading to the building closed.
Police chief David Kimaiyo warned on Friday that unrest would not be tolerated.
He said: “We have reports indicating that some parties have organized their supporters to converge outside the Supreme Court during delivery of the ruling, and we will not allow any such gatherings.
“There will be tight security in all parts of the country, we will not tolerate any form of violence.”
Outgoing President Mwai Kibaki has urged people to stay calm and accept the result, but much will depend on Kenyans’ faith in their newly reformed judiciary.
Lawyers for Raila Odinga said their petition to the Supreme Court included allegations of vote manipulation, as well as problems with the registration of voters and an electronic vote counting mechanism.
On Friday, the Supreme Court reviewed recounts from 22 polling stations. Both sides claimed that the recounts vindicated their position.
Uhuru Kenyatta has called the election, which was largely conducted peacefully, a “triumph of democracy”.
The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) has insisted that the vote was credible, despite technical failures with an electronic voter ID system and the vote counting mechanism.
International observers said the poll was largely free, fair and credible, and that the electoral commission had conducted its business in an open and transparent manner.
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Tens of thousands of people in Mexico City are marching against the result of the presidential election, which was won by Enrique Pena Nieto.
The demonstrators, who are not necessarily linked to any particular party, say the vote was not fair.
They accuse Enrique Pena Nieto’s party, the PRI, of buying votes; some carried banners saying “Not another fraud”.
Enrique Pena Nieto, who was declared the winner after a recount of nearly half the votes, denies the allegation.
The second-placed candidate in Mexico’s presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has said he will mount a legal challenge to the result.
Tens of thousands of people in Mexico City are marching against the result of the presidential election, which was won by Enrique Pena Nieto
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would prove that illicit money was used to buy votes in the 1 July poll and secure the victory of centrist candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, who denies this.
Six years ago, after losing the presidential election by a narrow margin, the left-wing Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador led weeks of protests that caused disruption in central areas of Mexico City.
Enrique Pena Nieto was confirmed the winner on Friday after a final recount, with 38.21% to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s 31.59%.
Third-placed Josefina Vazquez Mota, from the right-wing National Action Party, has admitted defeat.
There is a broad spread of people, not necessarily from the left, who feel that votes in their parts of Mexico were tampered with.
But Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution, said the election had been fraudulent and that he would file an appeal next week.
He accuses the party of Enrique Pena Nieto, the Institutional Revolutionary Party, of paying for votes using gift cards for a supermarket chain.
Numerous videos have emerged of people claiming they received credit in exchange for voting for the PRI.
The party governed Mexico for 71 years until it was defeated in the 2000 presidential poll.
Far-right leader Marine Le Pen has vowed to cast a blank vote in Sunday’s French presidential poll run-off.
Marine Le Pen told a rally of her National Front party that she could back neither incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy nor Socialist Francois Hollande and told supporters to follow their conscience.
Marine Le Pen won 6.5 million votes – 17.9% – in the first round of the election.
The latest opinion polls suggest Francois Hollande has a six to 10 point lead over President Sarkozy.
Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy will go head-to-head in the sole televised election debate on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Marine Le Pen led her National Front party’s annual rally to its climax at the Place de l’Opera in the French capital.
Marine Le Pen was addressing supporters after winning a record number of votes for her party in the first round of the presidential election and after taking over from her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, just over a year ago.
“On Sunday, I will vote blank,” she told the rally.
“I have made my choice. Each of you will make yours.”
Marine Le Pen told a rally of her National Front party that she could back neither incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy nor Socialist Francois Hollande and told supporters to follow their conscience
Marine Le Pen praised the campaign her party had run, saying it had touched the spirit of the French people.
“We have become the centre of gravity for French politics,” she said.
Marine Le Pen said a “great project of emancipation” had begun and nothing would be the same again.
She rounded on both Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Marine Le Pen said Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent policy switches had contradicted his actions over his five-year term and he was not fit to be president.
Opinion polls suggest about 50% of National Front voters will back the president, about 30% will abstain and about 15% will support Francois Hollande.
Nicolas Sarkozy is holding a large rally on Tuesday in Trocadero Square, Paris, which he says is a showcase of “real work”.
This has irritated unions as it carries the implication that Left-wing unions – who are holding their own May Day rally – do not understand the value of work.
Meanwhile, Francois Hollande told supporters in the central town of Nevers: “French people want change.”
He added that now he was no longer the candidate of the Socialist Party but the candidate of “the whole united Left”.
After the first round on 22 April, far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon – who polled 11% of the vote – told his supporters to rally behind Francois Hollande in the second round.
Francois Hollande has chosen not to attend the unions’ rally at the Bastille, which will be addressed by Socialist Party secretary Martine Aubry.
Large numbers of workers and union members are marking May Day with marches and rallies across the country.
Nicolas Sarkozy continued to court far-right voters on Tuesday in an interview on the RMC radio station, saying France had too many immigrants.
He said: “Our system of integration doesn’t work. Why? Because before we were able to integrate those who were received on our territory, others arrived. Having taken in too many people, we paralyzed our system of integration.”
Ten candidates from the Egyptian presidential poll, including former spy chief Omar Suleiman and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Khairat al-Shater, have been barred by election officials.
Ultra orthodox Salafi Sheikh Hazem Salah Abu Ismail has also been banned.
No reason was given by officials, who said the banned candidates had 48 hours to appeal. Thirteen candidates remain.
Elections are due to be held in May, more than a year after Hosni Mubarak was overthrown by popular protests.
The decision by Omar Suleiman to stand for the presidency sparked major protests in Cairo on Friday
Egypt is still governed by a military council, although parliamentary elections have taken place in the meantime. The Brotherhood-backed Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) became the largest party in parliament.
The decision by Omar Suleiman to stand for the presidency sparked major protests in Cairo on Friday.
The news that he and nine other candidates were being excluded was announced by Farouk Sultan, the head of the Supreme Presidential Election Commission. Officials said the 10 did not meet the conditions for candidacy, but no further explanation was given.
