Mali’s local elections marred by protests, boycotts

Malians burned ballot boxes and protested against long-delayed local elections this weekend to fill posts left vacant in the north since Islamist militants hijacked a 2012 Tuareg rebellion and ousted the government.

The jihadists were driven out a year later by a French-led military operation, but have continued to launch strikes on army and U.N. targets from their desert bases and have intensified their insurgency in recent months and spread further south.

Opposition parties as well as a medley of armed groups participating in a U.N.-led peace process have criticised Sunday’s poll, pointing to deep divisions still affecting the former French colony three years after the war.

“The current situation is not right for elections because the majority of our population are scattered in different refugee camps,” said Amgar Ag Yehia, a Timbuktu resident who boycotted the vote.

“If the government does not cancel the elections, the risk is that the (security) situation gets even worse,” he added.

On a main road near the entry to the northern town of Gao, locals had gathered stones and aligned them to read “No elections here”, forcing cars to drive around them.

In Kidal, 250 kilometres to the north in a region that Tuareg separatists call “Azawad”, Tuareg women draped in colourful cloth marched in the streets for the second day