Ruling bloc leads in Mali polls

Bamako - Mali's ruling coalition took an early lead in the first round of legislative elections in the west African country which has the dubious distinction of having the world's most ballot-shy electorate.

"About 10 lawmakers have been elected," out of the 147 seats up for grabs, an official from the ministry for local administration said.

A count showed that nearly all the successful candidates were linked to the ruling coalition of President Amadou Toumani Toure's Alliance for Democracy and Progress.

Amada Ag Bibi, the spokesperson of a former Tuareg rebel group, also linked to the governing bloc, was elected in the first round on Sunday.

Mali, a former French colony with 12 million inhabitants, is one of the poorest countries in the world despite ranking third among Africa's gold producers and being one of its leading cotton exporters.

Barely one in five, or 21.7 percent, of voters in the country on the edge of the Sahara desert have participated on average in recent elections, according to the Sweden-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).

About 6,2 million voters were registered to choose between 1 400 candidates vying for a seat in the 147-seat parliament in Sunday's first round.

The presidential bloc holds 97 seats in the outgoing parliament, while the opposition Front for Democracy and the Republic has the remaining 50.

The opposition, which alleged gross irregularities in Toure's re-election, decided to take part in Sunday's polls despite failing to achieve its demands for a new electoral roll and voter registration cards.

Candidates who fail to win 50 percent of ballots cast fight for parliamentary seats in a second voting round on July 22.

Surveys show that the turnout rate in several polling stations was under 20 percent.

Several international poll observers pronounced the elections to have been generally fair and transparent but denounced the low turnout rate. - Sapa-AFP