[4] Sidibé Aminata Diallo, a female professor, announced on 12 March that she intended to stand as the candidate of the Rally for Sustainable Education and Development.

[5] The former ruling party, the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (ADEMA), opted to support the incumbent president, Amadou Toumani Touré.

Former Defense Minister Soumeylou Boubèye Maiga, the Vice-President of ADEMA, was expelled from the party for opposing the decision as he intended to run for president himself.

[10] On 1 April the Constitutional Court issued a provisional list of eight candidates who would contest the election; Touré, Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Mamadou Blaise Sangaré, Tiébilé Dramé, Soumeylou Boubèye Maiga, Oumar Mariko, Sidibe Aminata Diallo, and Madiassa Maguiraga.

[5] In order to have their candidacies accepted by the court, candidates were required to be sponsored by at least ten members of the National Assembly or at least five communal advisors from each of the country's regions, as well as Bamako, the capital (a minimum of 45 combined).

The latter date had been made a public holiday in order to encourage voters to get the cards prior to the deadline at midnight,[18] after which it was reported that about 63.78% had been distributed.

[21] Fodié Touré, the head of the electoral commission, said on 16 April that more than a thousand foreign observers had sought permission to monitor the election.

[23] On 24 April the Front for Democracy and the Republic (FDR), a coalition that included four of the opposition candidates (Keïta, Dramé, Maiga, and Sangaré)[24][25] and 16 parties[26] sharply criticized the way the election was being prepared.

It alleged serious problems with the electoral list, which it said had been manipulated, and criticized the use of fingerprints on ballot papers and the failure to allow the presence of its representatives when the military votes.

[20] Prior to the election, Touré was considered likely to win; he ran as an independent but was backed by a coalition, the Alliance for Democracy and Progress, composed of 43 parties.

Some observers argued that this concession by the FDR was due to the massive scale of the victory attributed to Touré, which made its own claims appear untenable.