Mali votes despite coronavirus and security fears

Malians voted in a long-delayed parliamentary election on Sunday, barely a day after the country recorded its first coronavirus death and with the leading opposition figure kidnapped and believed to be in the hands of jihadists.
There were security fears about the vote to elect new MPs to the 147-seat National Assembly even before the war-torn West African country recorded its first coronavirus infection on Wednesday.
But then late Saturday, just hours before polls opened at 0800 GMT Sunday, the country's first coronavirus death was announced - a 71-year-old man recently returned from France. Mali's number of confirmed infection has risen to 20.
"I came to vote, but I'm afraid," said Souleymane Diallo, a 34-year-old teacher voting in the capital Bamako. "As you can see there's nobody here. Maybe because it's the morning, but it's also not surprising because of the situation."
There are fears that the impoverished state of some 19 million people - where large swathes of territory lie outside state control - is particularly exposed to a COVID-19 outbreak.
Prime Minister Boubou Cisse admitted that turnout was not very large so far.
"I appeal to the voters: remember to respect the barrier gestures and use the sanitary measures," he said as he voted, adding that turnout was "sufficiently satisfactory".
It is the country's first parliamentary poll since 2013, when President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita's Rally for Mali party won a substantial majority. Parliamentary elections were meant to take place again in late 2018 following Keita's re-election, but the poll was postponed several times, largely due to security concerns.
Some 200,000 people displaced by the near-daily violence in Mali's centre and north will not be able to vote, a government official has said. Very few people showed up to polling stations in the northern city of Timbuktu in the morning, but attendance had somewhat increased by midday, an AFP reporter observed.