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." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 2000 Panafrican News Agency. All Rights Reserved ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------