Mali’s postwar election produced no clear winner and former Prime Minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will face ex-finance minister Soumaila Cisse in a run-off due on August11, the government said yesterday.

Provisional results gave Keita 39 per cent of votes cast in the July 28 poll, well ahead of Cisse’s 19 per cent. But the third and fourth placed candidates may now rally behind Cisse, with whom they have been in coalition.

The election was the first since a March 2012 coup led to the occupation of Mali’s north by separatist and Islamist rebels.

French forces intervened in January to defeat the al-Qaeda-linked Islamists, whose threats to disrupt the poll did not materialise.

The election turnout, at 51.5 per cent, was the highest ever in Mali. But more than three million did not take part and 400,000 of those who did spoiled their ballot papers, according to official figures.

“I think this [run-off vote] is a positive thing for Malian democracy given what the country has just gone through,” said Christopher Fomunyoh of the US-based National Democratic Institute, which works to strengthen democracy around the world.

“Firstly it allows whoever wins the second round to have a full mandate, legitimacy that is required to govern. Secondly it is going to allow the election management body... to address some of the shortcomings that were identified in the first round.” (Reuters)