[JURIST] Mali’s Constitutional Court on Thursday rejected allegations of electoral fraud in the country’s first round of presidential elections. The court confirmed former prime minister Ibrahim Boubacar Keita [official profile] as the winner of Mali’s July 28 first round presidential vote but said that he had failed to win an outright majority, only securing 39.79 percent of the vote. Former finance minister Soumaila Cisse was the runner-up with 19.7 percent of the vote. Cisse and other candidates had accused Keita’s campaign of at least a dozen instances of electoral fraud. Keita will face Cisse in the second round of voting on Sunday.

Keita is considered the frontrunner in Sunday’s election, having secured the endorsement of some 20 other candidates as well as influential Muslim leaders. He has run a nationalist campaign, promising to restore Mali’s dignity after a March 2012 coup [JURIST report] threw the country into civil war. Cisse has criticized religious leaders for publicly backing Keita as Malian electoral law forbids “people of influence” from advancing political candidates. Whoever wins Sunday’s election will have to negotiate with the Tuaregs, who took advantage of the chaos surrounding the coup [AP report]. The Tuaregs have currently agreed to a ceasefire with the government.