VZCZCXRO8555
RR RUEHMA RUEHPA
DE RUEHBP #0277/01 1271142
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 071142Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY BAMAKO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0299
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS 0637
RHMFISS/HQ USAFRICOM STUTTGART GE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 BAMAKO 000277 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PINR KDEM ML
SUBJECT: LOCAL ELECTION RESULTS SET STAGE FOR 2012 
PRESIDENTIAL RACE 
 
REF: BAMAKO 00146 
 
1.(SBU)  Summary: Unofficial results from Mali's April 26 
local elections show the Alliance for Democracy in Mali 
(ADEMA) party reinforcing its position as Mali's largest 
political party, edging out the Union for the Republic and 
Democracy (URD) for the greatest percentage of the roughly 
11,000 local officials elected last Sunday.  Election day 
proved disastrous for Mali's main opposition party - the 
Rally for Mali (RPM) - which lost nearly a thousand seats, 
leaving the RPM with a paltry six percent of local office 
holders.  Alleged incidents of fraud and election related 
appeals appear to be linked to participants' generally low 
literacy and skills levels and in line with fraud allegation 
rates from previous elections in Mali.  These incidents were 
unlikely to affect electoral outcomes.  Authorities generally 
acted swiftly to prevent suspected fraud and arrested 94 
persons for attempted electoral fraud in the District of 
Bamako alone.  As Mali's last nation wide election before the 
2012 presidential contest, ADEMA and the URD - previously 
united in support of President Amadou Toumani Toure - will 
now vie against each other in a bid to succeed President 
Toure in 2012.  End Summary. 
 
------------------- 
And the Winners Are 
------------------- 
 
2.(SBU) On April 26 Malians in 703 local communes went to 
20,265 polling stations to elect 10,789 communal councilors. 
Malian officials described overall turnout rates among Mali's 
nearly 7 million voters as disappointing, but national level 
participation rates remain unavailable.  Turnout was 
noticeably higher in rural areas, with some individual 
communes reporting participation rates of 50 percent or more. 
In Bamako voter turnout ranged form a high of 35 percent in 
some areas to a low of 15 percent in others.  The average 
participation rate for Bamako was 22 percent which, as Bamako 
Governor Ibrahima Fefe Kone noted, matched or exceeded 
turnout rates for Mali's last two presidential elections. 
 
3.(SBU)  ADEMA won four of Bamako's six communes. The URD 
carried one commune, and an independent list headed by the 
well-funded Moussa Mara captured another.  This was a victory 
two years in the making for the relatively young Mara.  In 
2007 Mara nearly bounced then National Assembly president and 
RPM leader Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was still reeling from 
his resounding defeat in the earlier presidential election, 
out of the National Assembly altogether.  Keita prevailed in 
an embarrassingly close second round run-off victory, and 
many suspected the invisible hand of President Toure, offered 
in recompense for going quietly into defeat after the 
presidential election, may have helped put Keita over the top. 
 
4.(SBU)  Overall in Bamako, ADEMA netted 73 of the 250 
councilor posts up for grabs.  The URD placed second with 45 
posts, and the RPM third with 35.  ADEMA carried all of 
Mali's 8 regions plus Bamako, and six of Mali's eight 
regional capitals: Kayes, Sikasso, Segou, Mopti, Timbuktu and 
Gao.  Independent lists attached to President Toure's dying 
Mouvement Citoyen (Ref. A) fared well in Koulikoro and Kidal, 
splitting the difference in Koulikoro with another minor 
political party and carrying the town of Kidal outright.  The 
Mouvement Citoyen's list in Kidal was led by Kidal Chamber of 
Commerce president Abdousalam ag Assalat and out-polled the 
ADEMA list headed by Kidal's ruling ag Intallah family.  Ag 
Assalat is now well positioned to either replace Atiyoub ag 
Intallah as Mayor of Kidal or seek the presidency of the 
Kidal Regional Assembly. 
 
----------------------- 
Whither the Opposition? 
----------------------- 
 
5.(SBU)  Election results for Mali's three main opposition 
parties - the RPM, the Party for National Rebirth (PARENA), 
and the African Solidarity party for Democracy and 
Independence (SADI) - were dismal.  The RPM's number of 
office holders was reduced by half, dropping from 1,596 
locally elected officials in 2004 to a measly 767.  The RPM's 
main public mouthpiece, the daily newspaper Info Matin, 
attempted to put a positive spin on this result by claiming 
that while the number of RPM held posts had declined, the RPM 
was now represented in more communes than before. 
 
6.(SBU)  The RPM was handily outspent by ADEMA and the URD. 
Public financing of political parties is based in large part 
on past electoral performance and therefore provides a 
distinct financial advantage to incumbents.  ADEMA which has 
 
BAMAKO 00000277  002 OF 004 
 
 
the most public office holders nationwide, received the 
greatest amount of public campaign funds, totaling 
approximately USD 700,000; the URD netted USD 400,000; and 
the RPM only USD 230,000.  This enabled ADEMA to campaign in 
all of Mali's 703 communes - excepting three of the most 
isolated, distant communes in northern Mali - by spending 
campaign funds on rallies, fabric, T-shirts, campaign 
posters, and voter transportation on election day.  The URD 
campaigned in 688 communes and used its public campaign funds 
to purchase 600 Chinese motorcycles to help rural party 
representatives turn out the vote.  The RPM competed in 611 
communes.  Noticeably absent from the RPM effort was its 
president, Keita, who made little to no effort to drum up 
support for RPM affiliated candidates.  A week after the 
election one local newspaper remarked on the conspicuous 
absence of the RPM's "charismatic president" on the campaign 
trail and reported that Keita had in fact traveled to Paris, 
on the private jet of his longtime political ally Gabonese 
President Omar Bongo, for treatment of an undisclosed medical 
problem. 
 
7.(SBU)  Also absent from the campaign trail was Mali's other 
leading opposition leader, PARENA president Tiebile Drame. 
Drame seemingly abdicated his role as PARENA leader in 
February to serve a higher calling as the UN's special envoy 
to the crisis in Madagascar.  Although Drame's status as 
former President Alpha Oumar Konare's son-in-law means he can 
never be counted out, his presence would have likely made 
little difference for PARENA which remains safely ensconced 
within the second tier of Malian political parties.  PARENA 
received only USD 90,000 in public campaign finance funds and 
was only able to compete in 489 communes.  It captured just 
422 posts on April 26, which was a decline of nearly 200 from 
¶2004.  All of PARENA's election officials hail from the 
regions of Kayes and Koulikoro. 
 
8.(SBU)  The quixotic independent opposition party SADI 
netted 247 seats, all from the agricultural regions of Segou 
and Sikasso.  SADI's Secretary General and de facto leader, 
National Assembly Deputy Oumar Mariko, advocates 
nationalizing industries and halting privatization of 
parastatals like the Malian national cotton company (CMDT). 
Mariko's outspoken support for cotton farmers and vociferous 
criticism of the notoriously corrupt Office du Niger has 
turned SADI into what might be called a niche political party 
popular with farmers' groups, labor unions, and 
anti-globalization activists. 
 
-------------- 
The Fine Print 
-------------- 
 
9.(SBU) A number of second-tier political parties also 
secured some local councilor seats.  The National Committee 
for Democratic Initiatives (CNID) and the Patriotic Movement 
for Renewal (MPR), which are respectively Mali's fourth and 
fifth largest political parties, finished fourth and seventh 
in overall number of elected officials.  The Convergence for 
Malian Development (CODEM) party's fifth place showing was 
unusual given that we had not previously regarded CODEM as a 
national level party.  The Union for Democracy and 
Development (UDD) and the remnants of Mali's first political 
party - the Soudanese Union of the Rally for African 
Democracy (US-RDA) - rounded out the top ten finishers: 
 
   ADEMA  - 3,164 seats 
   URD    - 1,917 seats 
   RPM    -   767 seats 
   CNID   -   478 seats 
   CODEM  -   406 seats 
   PARENA -   422 seats 
   MPR    -   359 seats 
   SADI   -   247 seats 
   UDD    -   159 seats 
   US-RDA -   119 seats 
 
-------------------------------------------- 
Allegations of Fraud, both Real and Imagined 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
10.(SBU)  Anxiety in the run-up to the local elections over 
the state of the Malian electoral lists notwithstanding, 
allegations of fraud stemming from the April 26 communal 
elections appear isolated.  The most serious incidents 
occurred in the town of Ber east of Timbuktu and Tarkint 
north of Gao (septel).  On election day in Bamako authorities 
arrested 94 people for suspected electoral fraud.  Most were 
arrested for possession of stolen voter registration cards. 
Some were arrested while attempting to bribe voters as they 
 
BAMAKO 00000277  003 OF 004 
 
 
entered polling stations.  In one incident police arrested a 
candidate for trying to physically prevent voters from 
entering the polls - he alleged his opponents had earlier 
prevented his supporters from voting. 
 
12.(SBU)  Revealing once again the lightening speed of Malian 
justice when authorities are so motivated, election officials 
expedited prosecution of the 94 suspected fraudsters. 
According to the government newspaper L'Essor, courts have 
already released 31 individuals for lack of evidence, 
sentenced one individual to two months in jail, and sentenced 
fifteen others to one month in prison. 
 
13.(SBU) A local NGO, Support for the Electoral Process in 
Mali (APEM), which sent 341 observers to polling stations 
across Mali on election day, catalogued no irregularities at 
76 percent of the polling stations it visited, and documented 
irregularities unlikely to affect the outcome of the election 
at the remaining 23 percent.  APEM attributed the minor 
irregularities primarily to inadequate training of poll 
workers.  APEM observed that Article 88 of Mali's electoral 
law, which allows a voter without identification to vote 
provided the voter is accompanied by two witnesses assigned 
to the same polling station, provided an easy avenue for 
fraud but concluded that the impact of fraudulent misuse of 
Article 88 during the communal elections was minimal. 
 
14.(SBU) The commune of Bougouni, which is near Mali's 
southern border with Cote d'Ivoire, combined its local 
elections with a legislative bi-election to replace a 
deceased National Assembly Deputy.  According to local 
newspaper reports, of the 86,000 votes cast in Bougouni, 
Mali's Constitutional Court voided 12,000 (or approximately 
14 percent) of the legislative ballots for various 
irregularities ranging from failures to reconcile the number 
of ballots cast with the number of voters and what appear to 
be mix ups between local level ballots and legislative 
ballots - a problem suggesting that running two separate 
elections on the same day in Bougouni may not have been the 
best idea.  Bougouni will hold a second round for the 
legislative election on May 17 between the top two finishers: 
ADEMA and the URD. 
 
------------------------ 
Comment: Next Stop, 2012 
------------------------ 
 
15.(SBU) Local election results can be explained in part by 
the structural advantages that Mali's electoral system 
provides to parties already in power.  Public financing of 
political parties is based on past electoral performance, 
providing a financial advantage to incumbents.  Moreover, 
local communal councilors are elected by proportional 
representation from party lists in which voters vote for a 
party rather than a candidate.  As a result, most voters have 
no idea what candidates are on their party's list.  This, 
too, redounds to the advantage of established parties with 
name recognition, ready money, and strong get out the vote 
machines.  This may explain why ADEMA triumphed even in areas 
where its incumbents were embroiled in controversy.  ADEMA 
won a convincing victory, for example, in Bamako's third 
commune even though its party list was headed by the current 
mayor of Bamako, Adama Sangare, whose real estate 
manipulations have earned him the enmity of large segments of 
the population. 
 
16.(SBU)  Opposition parties' remarkably weak showing on 
April 26 seemingly sets up an unusual battle for 2012 as the 
two major forces behind President Toure's winning political 
coalition for 2007 - ADEMA and the URD - will now set their 
sights on one another.  Of the two, ADEMA is better organized 
and better funded. But ADEMA also has history of fracturing 
during presidential election cycles.  The RPM and the URD are 
both ADEMA election year spin-offs. RPM leader Ibrahim 
Boubacar Keita left ADEMA in 2001 after a falling out with 
then President Alpha Oumar Konare who made it clear that 
Keita was not going to be ADEMA's presidential nominee for 
¶2002.  The politician who was ADEMA's 2002 presidential 
nominee, Soumaila Cisse, left the party in disgust to found 
the URD after Konare shifted his support to the independent 
candidate Amadou Toumani Toure for the second round of the 
2002 presidential voting. 
 
17.(SBU)  During the 2007 presidential election ADEMA 
fractured again as several senior party leaders, led by 
former Minister of Defense Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, opposed 
the party's decision to endorse President Toure's re-election 
instead of running a candidate of its own.  While Maiga was 
welcomed back into the party in 2008, serious divisions 
 
BAMAKO 00000277  004 OF 004 
 
 
remain between ADEMA's two most eligible candidates for the 
2012 nomination: National Assembly president Diouncounda 
Traore and Prime Minister Modibo Sidibe.  Cisse, who has 
bided his time since losing in the second round of the 2002 
presidential election, may emerge as the winner of a 
protracted internal struggle between Traore and Sidibe for 
ADEMA's 2012 nomination.  Cisse's decision to graciously sit 
out the 2007 presidential contest may also earn him some 
support from an outgoing President Toure, and the URD's 
strong showing on April 26 will provide Cisse with the local 
networks and organizational structure needed to support a 
serious presidential run. 
MILOVANOVIC