Bamako, Mali — Retired military general Amadou Toumani Toure, maintained his lead, late Wednesday, after the release of the latest provisional results from the presidential election.
With almost 70 per cent of the votes counted on Wednesday night, Toure, also known by his initials, "ATT", retained his number one spot, according to official results, with 28.32 per cent of the vote.
He was followed by the governing partys candidate, Soumaila Cisse at 26.1 per cent; lying third was former Malian prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, known by his initials, "IBK", with 19.44 per cent.
But four days after the Sunday's poll, full results - originally expected on Tuesday - were still not available. And the legal deadline for announcing full results falls on Friday, May 3.
More than 5.7 million Malians were eligible to vote in and outside the country. The official results from Wednesday indicated an overall turnout of 42.23 per cent but Malians are waiting patiently for more concrete information about Sundays generally calm and orderly election.
Some 24 candidates ran for the presidency but, as analysts predicted, it has turned out to be a three-horse race.
'Bogus results
IBKs Rally for Mali party, the RPM, again challenged the results on Wednesday, alleging irregularities and fueling a dispute that began on Tuesday. The complaints threatened to derail vote processing and verification, after the RPM said it was obliged to dissociate itself from the process, because the methods being used were not reliable.
The party's main complaint was that results coming in via different channels did not tally with each other. Results are being sent several ways, by radio communication, phone, fax and e-mail from polling stations all over the country.
Backed by five parties in a coalition known as Hope 2002, the RPM called a news conference a few hours before the official election update, to alert the media to what it described as "bogus" results, "an act of subversion" and "out and out manipulation".
The RPM said it had its own reliable results which put IBK in first place. IBKs spokesman said this position would have been evident to all if the results had not been released 'selectively by the central vote processing commission, in collusion with the Ministry of Territorial Administration, where the votes are being coordinated and validated.
Wednesdays official figures putting ATT ahead continued the trend set in the first published results published belatedly early Tuesday.
ATT became a national hero when he overthrew the unpopular, autocratic one-party regime of Moussa Traore in 1991. He went on to head a transitional government that handed back power to an elected civilian administration the following year.
The results do not include ballots cast in the capital, where analysts have predicted that IBK will poll well.
But even if IBK should carry the capital, where Cisse has limited support, he would not have enough votes to catch up with ATT and topple his lead.
By Wednesday, ATTs total had risen to 442,229, Soumaila Cisse stood at 407,559 while IBK had fallen behind them with 303,567.
'Mali is not Madagascar"
IBKs party says these results are nonsense. His spokesman, Toumani Diallo, warned that "we arent in Madagascar," implying that the RPM's candidate could not be "robbed" of electoral victory,in the same way described by the opposition leader in the contested presidential election in the Indian Ocean island.
The RPM party says it will take its allegations of fraud to the courts and has called on its supporters to remain calm.
Hope 2002 coalition members in Mali told journalists the elections had not been organised in an "orthodox " manner, that the checks and balances were not working and that there were too many unanswered discrepancies in the vote verification process.
Who will win and who will drop out remained the talk of the town on Wednesday, May Day, despite it being a public holiday for workers.
Although no newspapers were on sale, journalists were accosted by ordinary Malians desperate for information about what was really going on at the election results nerve centre at the Ministry of Territorial Administration in Bamako.
There is mounting public tension and suspicion because of the largely unexplained delays by the authorities. Citizens in the vast desert nation are well aware that the full results must be announced by Friday.
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If no candidate wins the necessary 50 per cent of votes needed to win the presidential poll outright, then the two top candidates will face off in a second round on 12 May.
Africa is often accused of trailing behind the rest of the world in the field of new technology, especially the Internet. But it is ironic that, in Malis case, advanced technology is being blamed for problems in the vote counting and verification process.
The big idea was that locally counted vote totals should be transmitted from the polling stations direct to the central results centre in Bamako by phone, fax, radio communication and e-mail, and that this would make the process smoother.
But critics now argue that the multiple channels for the transfer of election results to a central location in the capital has, in practice, led to delays, confusion, suspicion and a lack of transparency and efficiency.
They also complain that the system is open to manipulation and potential cheating.
So the authorities in Mali, who pledged to avoid a repeat of the chaotic failed elections annulled in 1997, are under fire again.
