Johannesburg - Low voter turnout in parliamentary elections on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar on Sunday, in which the ruling party took an early lead, could threaten the legitimacy of the next national assembly, Malagasy newspapers said Monday. Partial results showed only around 30 per cent of the 7.5 million Malagasy eligible to vote had cast a ballot for 127 MPs, pointing to a "record" low turnout, the Madagascar Tribune reported.
"This low turnout will call into question the legitimacy of those people declared elected deputies," the Tribune said.
The Madagascar Express also predicted that the low participation rate "threatens to erode the legitimacy of the deputies."
Only one of five eligible voters had gone to the polls in the capital Antananarivo and turnout was as low as 10 per cent in some parts of the country, the Express reported.
Preliminary results showed the ruling Tiako i Madagasikara (TIM) of President Marc Ravalomanana poised to hold onto its majority in the assembly.
Vote counting was still underway but TIM candidates were well ahead in the capital's six constituencies, according to the Tribune.
"The polling itself went well," said Dieudonne Tshiyoyo, senior programme officer at the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA), which deployed a team of election monitors to the polls.
There had been no reports of violence during the vote.
"The biggest issue is the level of participation, which appears to be very low," he told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.
The low participation was mostly attributed to voter apathy in a year in which the Malagasy have already been called on to vote twice - in presidential elections in December 2006 that returned Ravalomanana for a second term and in an April referendum on a constitutional amendment.
Ravalomanana called early elections in July, saying the assembly no longer represented the country following the constitutional amendment. The amendment had dissolved six autonomous provinces.
Observers said he also aimed to boost support in his party for his Madagascar Action Plan on poverty by contesting an election with a largely new slate.
Around 70 per cent of Madagascar's 19.5 million people live on less than a dollar a day, making it one of the world's poorest countries.
