Mali: start of the campaign for the 29 July presidential election

The campaign for the presidential election of July 29 officially began Saturday in Mali with a reinforced security device for a poll for which twenty-four candidates are vying in a country still plagued by jihadist violence

A few posters were visible Saturday in different parts of the capital Bamako for this first day of campaign, for the moment without much excitement. Launching meetings of the two main candidates, outgoing President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, elected in 2013 for five years, and the main opponent Soumaïla Cissé, are scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

The famous Malian singer Salif Keita called to vote for Soumaïla Cissé, who came in second place in the last presidential election.

Twenty-four candidates in total run in the first round of presidential elections on July 29.

Among them, Hamadoun Touré, a former international civil servant , has planned to make "an itinerant campaign" with "buses to (his) effigy that will circulate through the city of Bamako", according to a member of his entourage.

Another candidate, the businessman Aliou Diallo, received on Friday the support of Chérif Hamaoulla Haïdara, said "Bouillé", an influential religious leader who had called in 2013 to vote for Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta.

More than 80 observers from the European Union (EU) will be present for the July 29 election, the EU Election Observation Mission in Mali said in a statement this week.

security has been strengthened for this campaign. More than 30,000 members of the security and defense forces have been mobilized to "secure the candidates on the ground and the voting operations," according to the Interior Ministry. Jihadist attacks have proliferated in Mali in recent days.

The North had fallen in March-April 2012 under the guise of armed groups linked to al-Qaeda, largely driven or dispersed by a military intervention launched in January 2013 at the initiative of France, which is still going on.

Despite a peace agreement signed in May-June 2015, the violence persisted and spread from the North to the center and the South, then to Burkina Faso and in neighboring Niger, often mingling with inter-community tensions or conflicts.