BAMAKO: Campaigning for Mali’s watershed July 28 presidential election officially began on Sunday, with the nation struggling to move on from war and return to desperately needed constitutional order after an 18-month political crisis. The ballot will be the first since a coup in March last year that ousted the democratically elected president, just months before he was due to step down at the end of his final term in office. The transitional government lifted a nearly six-month state of emergency on Saturday, marking what officials hope will be a gradual return to normality ahead of the nationwide polls.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 00:17:37 +0000