Africa
WITH one week to Mali’s crucial presidential election on 29 July, a Catholic cleric on Sunday called on his compatriots to exercise their civil right in the interest of the nation.
Mali with an estimated population of 18 million people has some 8 million registered voters across its nine regions and the district of Bamako, the nation’s capital.
The country is predominantly Muslim, and has no history of religious intolerance, but is scarred by insecurity in the north and central regions characterised by terrorism, jihadist insurgency and Tuareg separatist upheaval. The consequence is that the central government in Bamako lacks effective control of the troubled northern regions of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu and the central region of Mopti, prompting regional and international interventions since 2012.
In his homily on Sunday July 22, Fr. Benjamin Samake of the 65-year-old Our Lady of Fatima Parish, Bougouni, some 170-km from Bamako in Mali’s southernmost region of Sikasso, urged the population to come out en masse to vote.
Alternating between French and the local Bambara language, Fr. Samake, 55, and a native of Bougouni said: “I am not asking you to vote for candidate A, B or C, but you (voters) should go and vote, and if you have no preferred candidate, vote blank, it is your right.”
He reminded the congregation that the politico-governance challenge facing Mali “is largely Malian and should therefore be addressed first and foremost by Malians themselves.”
The cleric urged Christians, particularly those assigned to electoral duties to show good examples and eschew acts that could comprise the electoral process. He also announced that Mass would be held on Saturday at the Parish to encourage mass political participation on Sunday 29 July, the Election Day.
As in the Mosques, it was observed that men and women also seat separate rows in the Church in Mali.
Twenty-four candidates, including incumbent President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, 73, and the only female candidate, Madame Djeneba N’Diaye, are contesting the presidency.
Keita, who is seeking a second five-year mandate, and opposition leader Soumaila Cisse, are frontrunners in the July 29 vote ECOWAS has deployed 21 Long-Term Observers (LTOs) in the regions to monitor various stages of the electoral process.
The LTOs and 150 of their Short-term colleagues, due to arrive Mali this week, form the 171-member ECOWAS Observation Mission headed by Ambassador Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, Burkina Faso’s former Prime Minister and ECOWAS Commission President.
Sikasso region has some three million population, and its capital, Sikasso, under 150,000, making it Mali’s second largest city.
Bougouni, a city and commune headquarters has 612,915 inhabitants (301,321 men and 311,594 women), with 219,618 registered voters and 707 polling centres.
– Jul. 23, 2018 @ 9:49 GMT
Tags: Cleric calls for Peaceful Presidential Poll in Mali
