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REUTERS
BAMAKO
MALIAN President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita won a landslide victory in a run-off against opposition rival Soumaila Cisse, the government said on Thursday, giving him a second term to try to turn back a surge in ethnic and Islamist militant violence.
Keita won 67 percent of the vote in an election marred by militant attacks and claims of fraud by the opposition.
Keita, known as IBK, now faces the giant task of lifting Mali out of a spiral of Islamist and ethnic bloodshed in the centre and north, where attacks worsened in the months leading up to the vote despite the presence of a United Nations peacekeeping force and French troops.
The security situation and the militants' ability to spread their influence to other West African countries is a concern to Western powers. Mali is also a main transit point for migrants trying to reach Europe via North Africa's shores, a priority issue in EU capitals.
Threats by jihadists forced nearly 500 polling stations - about two percent of the total - to stay closed during Sunday's run-off, the Ministry for Territorial Administration said. One election official was killed in northern Niafunke, in Timbuktu region.
Voter turnout of more than 2.7 million people was a muted 34 percent of the electorate.
