{{Mali’s presidential front-runner has ended his campaign promising to restore peace to the West African country reeling from a coup and an uprising that led to French military intervention.}}
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, 68, a former prime minister with a reputation for toughness, won last month’s first-round ballot with nearly 40 percent of the vote but fell short of an outright majority to avert a second round.
He faces Soumaila Cisse, former finance minister, in Sunday’s run-off.
The first round attracted 27 candidates and Keita, popularly known as IBK, has secured the endorsement of 22 of the 25 losing candidates.
Cisse, 63, the head of the West African monetary union (UEMOA), took just 19 percent of the first-round vote with promises to improve education, create jobs and reform the army.
Once seen as a model for democracy in turbulent West Africa, Mali was rocked by violence last year when al-Qaeda-linked rebels capitalised on the coup to seize control of the vast desert north, where they imposed a harsh version of Islamic law.
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