The candidate of Mali\u2019s largest political party, who came third in the first round of the country\u2019s presidential election, broke ranks with his own party on Saturday and said he will back former prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in a run-off.<\/p>\n
Dramane Dembele\u2019s move goes against his Adema-PASJ party\u2019s plans and deals a blow to the anti-junta coalition that had formed around former Finance Minister Soumaila Cisse, who will be Keita\u2019s contender in the Aug. 11 second round.<\/p>\n
Keita – seen as close to leaders of the coup last year that triggered Mali\u2019s current crisis – secured 39 percent of the first round votes, well ahead of Cisse\u2019s 19 percent. Dembele, who scored 9.5 percent, and fourth-placed candidate Modibo Sidibe had been expected to back Cisse.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m making a solemn appeal to all Adema-PASJ supporters and my compatriots who voted for me to vote for Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in the second round of the presidential election,\u201d Dembele told a news conference in Bamako.<\/p>\n
He said that he felt he had been \u201cbetrayed\u201d by some in the party by the fact that Adema could not muster more than 10 percent of the first-round vote although it is the biggest bloc in parliament.<\/p>\n
His campaign director, Harouna Cisse, told Reuters earlier that Dembele\u2019s decision had led to a split within the party and acting president Ibrahima N\u2019Diaye was against the decision.<\/p>\n
The July 20 first round was the first since the March 2012 coup led to the occupation of Mali\u2019s north by separatist and Islamist rebels.<\/p>\n
French forces intervened in January to defeat the al Qaeda-linked Islamists, whose threats to disrupt the poll did not materialise.<\/p>\n
(REUTERS)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The candidate of Mali\u2019s largest political party, who came third in the first round of the country\u2019s presidential election, broke ranks with his own party on Saturday and said he will back former prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in a run-off. Dramane Dembele\u2019s move goes against his Adema-PASJ party\u2019s plans and deals a blow to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-9510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9510"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=9510"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=9510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}