Voting Calm in Mali Presidential Poll

Voting is underway in Mali for a presidential election seen as the first step toward getting the country back on its feet after a disastrous 18 months that saw a military coup in the south and an Islamist takeover of the north. Voting got underway slowly Sunday with polling stations starting to fill up about an hour after they opened. No major issues have been raised, though security remains a key concern in the formerly occupied north.

Short lines of about a dozen people had formed outside polling offices here by mid-morning at this voting center in Bamako's Commune 5.

Voter Toumani Coulibaly said, "The current situation isn't helping anybody. The country can't continue like this, especially with a government that has so little power to work for the people. We need a democratically elected president to get us out of this crisis."

This is only the sixth election Mali has held since independence. Voter turnout has never been more than 40 percent.