Duet Home affairs ministry – CENI: the electoral uncertainty

The civil administrator is unwillingly dragged to the center of the controversy. This member of the CENI has been propelled into the Interior ministry’s top seat. His appointment equally became a cause for concerns, since the administrators threatened to paralyze the administration, could the government fail to appoint one of their owns on top of their ministry. Such an excess has been becoming legitimized since the HAT has been longing for the erection of a technician government. The HAT is having doubts on the irrational claim’s isolated nature  

The HAT home affairs minister is straining to reassure the opinion. “One is going not to do the CENI’s work “, he has declared when stepping into office, and underlining that the commission remains the electoral operations’ monitor. “The ministry provides support in the preparations of elections on the CENI’s bidding “, it added. Mr. Jean tried to erase doubts caused by his “affectation” while emphatically reiterating that the goal was remaining reliable and transparent elections, independently from his quality of minister or CENI member.   

The Interior minister ousted by civilian administrators recalled the preparations already tackled by the department during his mandate. Cecile Manorohanta praised the implementation of the new software rated as more suitable to the electoral list process. The other completed operations were the census of voters based on a recount by family as well as the additional court decisions aiming at providing non recorded people with a birth certificate and an identification card.  

As for the CENI, nothing is ready yet, but things are said to be matching the schedule. Some 8 millions of unique ballots have been ordered from national print house. The call to voters has already been completed and the big show is dimmed to take place on August 12th, 2010. The unique ballot is, however, still lacking a question. The constitutional draft to be validated by the people is far from ready. The national dialog supposed to validate it has been, besides, postponed.  The constitutional advisory council is finally in place, but with a couple of weeks long delay.  

In order to fill in the gaps, the CENI is engaging on symbolic actions, just to emphasize that electoral preparations are well under way. A sensitization campaign addressing voters on about the use of the unique bulletin is being launched throughout some regions but its impact is, somehow, very restricted. The president of the CENI stated that the publication of the very much expected newly reprocessed electoral list is under way. Hery Rakotomanana is putting his money on the regional computer centers’ efficiency which allowed the treatment’s decentralization. The HAT elections are officially on the right way forward, but still nothing is yet to be held as completed in time.