Citizens of Mali are voting in long-delayed parliamentary elections a day after the country’s first coronavirus death.
The poll has also been overshadowed by Wednesday’s kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaïla Cissé by suspected Islamist militants.
The parliamentary elections were initially scheduled for 2018. They were postponed a number of times because of security concerns.
Many opposition leaders called for elections to be postponed this year because of COVID-19 concerns but the country’s main opposition party, Mr. Cisse’s Union for the Republic and Democracy called on its supporters to turn out and vote in large numbers despite Cisse’s kidnapping.
“In these difficult times our country is going through, more than ever, the party’s activists are resolutely urged to redouble their efforts for a massive participation,” a spokesman is quoted by AFP as saying.
The country has recorded 18 coronavirus cases.
Earlier this week, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta declared a state of health emergency and imposed a curfew from 21:00 to 5:00 local time.
All land borders have also been closed.
The government said that there will be hand-washing facilities and masks available at polling stations, AFP news agency reports.
Mali’s last elections were held for the 147-seat parliament in 2013 and President Keïta’s Rally for Democracy Party won a large majority.
This round, tens of thousands who have been forced from their homes by the conflict in the north of the country will be unable to vote.
Mali, along with other countries in the region, has faced an upsurge in Islamist militant violence.
The country’s military is being supported by a regional force, the French army and a UN force which has been described as the most dangerous peacekeeping operation in the world.
