{"id":21822,"date":"2018-11-09T20:23:34","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T20:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21822"},"modified":"2018-11-09T20:23:34","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T20:23:34","slug":"madagascar-election-observers-report-very-minor-anomalies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21822","title":{"rendered":"Madagascar election observers report ‘very minor’ anomalies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

International observers have ruled out irregularities in this week’s presidential election in Madagascar<\/a>, after former leader\u00a0Hery Rajaonarimampianina alleged the ballot was marred by fraud.<\/span><\/p>\n

In\u00a0separate statements on Friday, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union’s monitoring mission to the Indian Ocean island-nation<\/span>\u00a0said no major anomalies took place during Wednesday’s vote.<\/p>\n

“The irregularities were very minor and won’t have any impact on the election’s outcome,” Cristian Preda, head of the EU mission, told reporters at a press conference in capital,\u00a0Antananarivo.<\/p>\n

Preda said two cases of ballot stuffing were reported from over 25,000 polling stations. He denounced people “attempting to cheat when they make allegations of irregularities” without substantiating such claims.<\/span><\/p>\n

The SADC, meanwhile, praised the country\u00a0<\/span>for holding a “lawful” poll.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The political and security environment before, during and immediately after polling was generally peaceful,”\u00a0Joseph Malanji,\u00a0head of the SADC observation mission,\u00a0said<\/a> in a statement.<\/p>\n

Ex-president alleged fraud<\/h2>\n

The observers’ comments came a day after\u00a0Rajaonarimampianina, one of the 36 candidates in the race, alleged<\/a>\u00a0“many irregularities” had taken place during the vote.<\/p>\n

According to the election commission’s latest count,\u00a0Rajaonarimampianina had won about four percent of the vote\u00a0based on ballots from 1,350 polling stations.<\/p>\n

Frontrunners Andry Rajoelina and Marc Ravalomanana, also former presidents, had nearly 42 and 40 percent of support respectively.<\/span><\/p>\n

Provisional results are expected by November 20. They must then be confirmed by the High Constitutional Court by November 28.<\/p>\n

With none of the 36 <\/span>hopefuls<\/span>\u00a0expected<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0to win more than 50 percent of the votes, a runoff between the two best performers is likely to held on December 19.<\/p>\n

The new president will begin serving a five-year term in January 2019.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Restive island<\/h2>\n

Wednesday’s vote marked the\u00a0latest instance of political upheaval in Madagascar – the world’s fourth-largest island and home to about 25 million people – since it became independent from France in 1960.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The\u00a0country, where more than 76 percent of its people live in extreme poverty\u00a0<\/span>according<\/a>\u00a0to the World Bank<\/span><\/span><\/span>,\u00a0has struggled to overcome\u00a0political divisions over a disputed 2001 election and a 2009 coup.<\/p>\n

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Madagascar election: Expenses soar amid extreme poverty<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

Both Ravalomanana and Rajoelina were banned from contesting the last election in 2013 under international pressure to avoid a repeat of the events in 2009, when street protests turned violent and left the country in turmoil.<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier this year, attempts\u00a0by Rajaonarimampianina, the incumbent, to change the country’s electoral laws backfired and sparked nearly three months of bitter anti-government demonstrations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Political opponents claimed the proposed changes were aimed at barring their candidates from taking part in the election.<\/span><\/p>\n

In June, the country’s top court <\/span>ordered<\/span><\/a>\u00a0the formation of a national unity government with a “consensus prime minister” to avert a full-blown crisis.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Two months later, on September 7,\u00a0<\/span>Rajaonarimampianina\u00a0resigned from office to compete in the presidential election.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

International observers have ruled out irregularities in this week’s presidential election in Madagascar, after former leader\u00a0Hery Rajaonarimampianina alleged the ballot was marred by fraud. In\u00a0separate statements on Friday, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union’s monitoring mission to the Indian Ocean island-nation\u00a0said no major anomalies took place during Wednesday’s vote. “The irregularities…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":21823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}