VZCZCXRO0001
RR RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHBP #0259/01 1171623
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 271623Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY BAMAKO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0273
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS 0629
RHMFISS/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BAMAKO 000259 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM ML
SUBJECT: LOCAL ELECTIONS IN MALI: A QUIET DAY AT THE POLLS 
 
1.(SBU)  Summary: Mali's local elections occurred without 
incident on Sunday, April 26, as Malians braved sweltering 
heat to select approximately 11,000 municipal level 
officials.  The U.S. Mission deployed observer teams 
throughout Bamako and to the interior cities of Segou, Mopti, 
and Timbuktu.  With results not expected for at least another 
day, moderate to low voter turnout emerged as the main story 
line for Malian officials and press outlets even though 
participation rates appeared to mirror those of the 2007 
presidential and legislative elections.  After casting his 
own ballot at one of the lightly attended polling stations in 
Bamako, President Amadou Toumani Toure linked low 
participation rates to overly complicated voter registration 
procedures and called for more user friendly, voter 
accessible procedures in the future.  For Embassy observers 
the more interesting theme was the dedication of the tens of 
thousands of Malian citizens who volunteered to serve as poll 
workers and apply, despite poor training and even poorer 
conditions, Malian electoral laws as fairly and accurately as 
possible.  We will provide a more comprehensive overview of 
the election results septel.  End Summary. 
 
----------------- 
A Sunday Election 
----------------- 
 
2.(SBU)  Malians meandered to polls across the country on 
Sunday to elect roughly 11,000 local level officials.  Unlike 
presidential elections where Malians vote for individual 
candidates, local and legislative elections are organized 
around lists of candidates identified only by a dizzying 
array of symbols and logos.  As a result, only the most 
informed voters know the names of the individuals attached to 
the lists for which they are voting.  Election winners are 
selected based on proportionalities received by each list. 
The system's opacity is further compounded by the back room 
dealing that occurs after the election, when newly elected 
local officials decide amongst themselves who will serve as 
mayor or deputy mayor or representative to Mali's several 
Regional Assemblies. 
 
3.(SBU)  Although most of the monuments, lamp posts, and city 
streets in Bamako have been plastered with pamphlets 
advertising the symbols and logos of myriad campaign lists, 
one could have mistaken election day in Bamako for just 
another sleepy, incredibly hot Sunday.  Apart from the small 
to moderate sized crowds milling around in the heat outside 
the public schools designated as polling centers, there were 
no discernible signs of an election in progress.  Indeed, 
many polling places had the unmistakable air of an average 
school day - albeit with a heavy police presence although 
even that is not so unusual for some of the larger, more 
turbulent schools in Bamako - as most of those congregating 
around polling stations appeared to be just above the 
eligible voting age. 
 
4.(SBU)  Nearly all of those commissioned by political 
parties as election day poll watchers assigned to individual 
polling stations seemed to be high school or university age 
kids.  Although some of these poll watchers were actively 
involved in helping to ensure the transparency of the polling 
process on behalf of their parties, most had all the 
enthusiasm of students forced to fulfill the mandatory 
requirements of a tedious civics class. 
 
5.(SBU)  Official poll workers sponsored by the Independent 
National Elections Commission appeared somewhat better 
trained and more knowledgeable, and the efficiency of 
individual polling stations depended on large part on the 
organization and leadership skills of the "president" of each 
individual polling station.  Although our observer teams 
encountered sporadic irregularities - ranging from failures 
to properly check voter identification or fully reconcile the 
number of voters with actual ballots cast - these 
irregularities stemmed not from any concerted attempt to 
perpetrate fraud but rather inadvertent errors stemming from 
training deficiencies or the conspicuous absence of basic 
essentials such as electricity, light, and chalk for tallying 
results on classroom blackboards. 
 
------------- 
Voter Turnout 
------------- 
 
6.(SBU)   Based on the informal tallies of our observer 
teams, turnout in Bamako ranged from a low of 15 percent in 
some areas to a high of 35 percent in others.  Turnout 
appeared to be higher, perhaps reaching 40 percent or more, 
in parts of the interior.  Our observer team in Segou 
reported some polling places with more than 50 percent 
 
BAMAKO 00000259  002 OF 002 
 
 
participation rates.  Fearing an embarrassingly low turnout, 
President Toure declared April 22, the Wednesday before 
election day, a national civic holiday to afford citizens the 
chance to collect their voter cards from local mayors' 
offices.  Despite this holiday and public attempts to 
encourage voter participation, polling places in Bamako had 
stacks and stacks of undistributed voter cards on election 
day. 
 
-------------------------------- 
Comment: Democracy a la Malienne 
-------------------------------- 
 
7.(SBU)  Despite much hand wringing about poor participation 
rates, highly unscentific guesstimates by our observer teams 
sugget that turnout rates for Sunday's local elections 
mirrored those of the 2007 presidential and legisltive 
contests.  According to Malian government satistics, 36 
percent of registered voters particpated in the 2007 
presidential elections and 31 percent in the 2007 legislative 
elections. 
 
8.(SBU)  Our observer teams noted some minor irregularities. 
These included failures to properly check voter 
identification resulting in the occasional underage voter, 
individuals milling around polling places with a few too many 
voter cards in their possession, and attempts to take 
advantage of a loop hole in the electoral law allowing for 
individuals without ID to vote with the assistance of two - 
oftentimes professional - witnesses.  Many of these incidents 
were not the products of systematic or, to borrow from Monday 
headlines in a number of Malian newspapers, "massive" fraud 
but rather the result of training and material deficiencies. 
 
9.(SBU)  In many instances our observers in Bamako and 
elsewhere watched as poll workers struggled to help would-be 
voters find their names among lists of thousands of extremely 
similar, and in many cases, identical names.  Even in Bamako, 
few of the public schools that doubled as polling places had 
electric lighting.  Although each individual polling station 
received as standard issue a kerosene lantern as part of its 
official election administration kit, kerosene was not 
included.  As night fell and ballot boxes were opened, poll 
workers, political party delegations and impartial observers 
battled the darkness with privately bought candles or cell 
phone flashlights.  Given the minimal amount, if any, of 
compensation poll workers stand to receive, their dedication 
and good-faith efforts under less than optimal circumstances 
suggests that the foundation of Malian democracy is much 
stronger than Sunday's participation rates imply. 
MILOVANOVIC