Chad: Opposition rejects vote roll
2010-04-06 15:00
Libreville - Chad's opposition on Tuesday called for a "freeze" on the local voters' rolls being drawn up by the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) ahead of parliamentary elections in November.
The voters' list has to be validated both by supporters of President Idriss Deby Itno and by the opposition in the large, poor country that straddles north and central Africa, but the opposition said the latest lists were sent to the presidency without being shown to their coalition.
"We want a freeze on these lists (...) We need to be able to see the lists again. It's certain that there are problems. Our local representatives have reported anomalies to us," said Saleh Kebzaboh, a main opposition leader, who was speaking in the name of the Co-ordination of Political Parties for the Defence of the Constitution (CPDC).
Normally, the CENI would pursue its task of drawing up a voters' register for the parliamentary polls and a presidential election in April next year and submit the rolls to a joint government and opposition committee set up under an accord reached on August 13 2007.
This has been done at the regional and district level, but at the level of sub-prefectures (administrative zones), the CENI did not show the lists to the opposition and sent it straight to Deby, Kebzaboh said in Libreville by telephone.
"The lists at the level of the sub-prefectures are almost the most important ones," Kebzaboh said. "That's where the CENI is the most operational, and it's at that level that the official election results will come out."
The CPDC had already protested at anomalies found in the registers at the regional and district levels, which were rectified.
- SAPA
