Bamako, Mali — Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the presidential candidate currently trailing in third position after 70 percent of the results are tallied, has cried foul and claimed vote rigging in Sunday's poll.
The former prime minister of Mali, known by his initials IBK, told journalists on Thursday that "it is obvious that the vote has been manipulated, because in some zones, the number of votes cast is higher than the number of registered voters". He called it "grotesque and crude fraud".
Results compiled by IBK's own camp put him comfortably in the lead.
But, officially he has won 19.44 of the votes in results already released, behind the former military leader and independent candidate, General Amadou Toumani Toure (with 28 percent of votes in so far) and Soumaila Cisse, (who is second with 26.10 percent). Cisse is the candidate of the governing Adema party of outgoing President Alpha Oumar Konare. Konare has served his two term limit and is barred by the constitution from staying on.
If no candidate reaches the 50 per cent majority needed to avoid a second round, then the two front runners will go forward to a run-off on May 12. Analysts say this is the likely scenario.
Unless IBK wins a landslide in Bamako, where official results are still awaited, and in remaining areas where votes have not yet been released, he is unlikely to make second place, and may be squeezed out of the race for the presidency.
IBK's Rally for Mali (RPM) party has been hinting at irregularities and discrepancies in the vote since Tuesday, when the matter was first raised after laboriously slow vote processing and validation at the central counting centre housed in the Ministry of Territorial Administration in the capital, Bamako.
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IBK officials have alleged that results are being fiddled before being released by the ministry. The wife of the Territorial Administration minister is Cisse's campaign manager. Though acknowledging a close personal friendship of 40 years with Cisse, the Territorial Administration minister, Ousmane Sy, says this fact did not affect his neutrality in the matter, adding that he did not mix his domestic and professional affairs.
Speaking to a group of journalists including allAfrica.com, IBK said his supporters were unhappy with the situation and concerned about possible vote-rigging, but that he was trying to calm them.
Questioned on what action he might ask of his party activists, IBK responded "I am not a rabble-rouser. I am not a vandal. I believe in the rule of law". But, he warned, "if you rob and cheat your people, it is sometimes hard to keep them under control".
A mass pro-IBK rally has been called in Modibo Keita stadium in Bamako on Saturday.
IBK said he had full confidence in the Constitutional Court, which is the institution that endorses the results of the elections. In 1997, after a chaotic and contested legislative poll fraught with irregularities, the court annulled the election.
IBK's RPM party is threatening to challenge in court what it has called deeply flawed vote-processing and validation as well as questionable official results.
