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Parliamentary elections were held in Mali on 24 November 2013. They had originally been planned for 1 and 22 July 2012, but were cancelled after the coup d'état in 2012 as a result and affected by the Tuareg Rebellion. In July 2013, gunmen abducted two election officials a week before the presidential elections, which are the first elections since the military coup in 2012. Results from the first round of voting were indecisive; meaning that a second round of voting was held on 15 December 2013. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta's RPM party won 115 of the 147 seats in the National Assembly. The URD, led by Soumalia Cissé, won between 17-19 seats; thus forming the Opposition.
Contents
Date
Following French intervention in the country's separatist Azawad region, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that the election should continue as scheduled and that the number of French forces in the country would be halved. Interim Prime Minister Django Sissoko visited Gao in northern Mali for the first time since the French intervention and rebel takeover in April 2013. He announced that the election will take place in July and the preparations were under way. However, unnamed analysts suggested a botched election could lead to further unrest. It was later decided to hold the legislative elections few months after the presidential polls. On 15 December, the second round voter turnout was just 38.5%.
Conduct
Two days before the second round, two Senegalese peacekeepers that were a part of MINUSMA were killed at a bombing outside the Malian Solidarity Bank in Kidal.
Aftermath
Issaka Sidibé, an RPM Deputy, was elected as President of the National Assembly on 22 January 2014. He received 115 votes, a large majority; 11 deputies voted instead for Oumar Mariko, while 20 deputies cast blank votes and one deputy cast a spoiled vote.