Senegal Embarks On Long Quest For Voting Transparency

February 15, 2000

Aly Koulibaly
PANA Correspondent

DAKAR, Senegal (PANA) - Political parties experts concerned by the
organisation, supervision and participation in the 27 February presidential
election are wondering over the voter's register to be used in the polling.

The transparency of the polls is "a permanent quest, even a major concern
for the administration," a senior official of the interior ministry, which
is responsible for running the election, said.

Senegal has been engulfed in tension and confrontation as the country got
closer to the beginning of the election campaign 6 February due to
irregularities the opposition say they detected in the process leading up to
the poll.

"We will assess what the anomalies are and we'll correct them," the director
of communication and training at the ministry, Awa Ndiaye Diouf, told PANA.

Mamadou Diop Decroix, an opposition legislator, proposed an audit of the
voters' rolls in a bid to ease the political tension at a time when the
country is moving towards the crucial poll.

In reality, to achieve understanding over the voter's rolls cannot but have
a positive results on the pending issue of the Israeli-made voters' cards.

The cards were apparently made in Israel at the initiative of the government
on the promise that the cards had certain security features which made it
virtually impossible for anyone to tamper with them.

The opposition cried foul, saying the government did not consult them and
was trying to rig the polls.

One opposition presidential runner, Djibo Ka, described the development of
the Israeli cards as "an electoral coup d'etat."

But according to Awa Diouf, the interior minister, retired Gen. Lamine
Cisse, is being praised by some Senegalese for his initiative to have
"transparent polls."

Even Senegalese President Abdou Diouf supported his minister's decision to
print the voters' cards in Israel.

"The political class ought to congratulate Gen. Cisse on his beautiful
initiative," Diouf said.

In spite of this presidential support, 20 opposition parties under the Front
for the Regularity and Transparency of the Elections, still blame the
interior ministry for having ordered the cards without informing them and
the National Observatory for Elections, the body charged with monitoring and
supervision of the polls, in advance.

The body said Cisse's initiative was not illegal but it was deplorable.

The Front for the Regularity and Transparency of the Elections proposed
that, on the basis of voters' rolls revised by the different parties
involved in the polls, voters should be able to vote with identity and
consular cards, passports or driving licences.

To this, the ruling Socialist Party replied that the "opposition is not
short of tricks to rig the poll."

It added that the opposition will lose the election because it did not do
its homework of sensitising its supporters to register in voters' rolls and
to return to their registration centres to get their voter's cards to be
used on voting day.

Cisse has made arrangements to ensure that the "electoral process is not
hampered," Abdourahim Agne, chairman of the party's parliamentary group,
said.

Awa Diouf said "the conditions for a smooth-running of the 27 February polls
are now in place," adding that the stakes were high. "Each of the eight
candidates wants to be elected for seven-year term."
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