On October 25th 2013, presidential elections will definitely take place!

Shipment of electoral tools and distribution of electoral cards

The Electoral Commission still has much to do on D-Day minus five. The electoral register is bound to complete its duty. Some 7 833 000 voters in all are officially called upon expressing their political choice of the fourth Republic’s first President. The unique ballots and the rest of the electoral tools are however yet to be conveyed in time to the each of the 20 001 polling stations scattered across the island.

Since the far away remote and hardly reachable communes happen to be the first ones to get supplied, there must basically be no ground to worry about… unless a certain transitional communication department minister supportive of candidate Rajaonarimampianina argues that some six Fokontany located in particularly remote areas would have caught no sight yet of the necessary deliveries.

Printing and sharing the printed electoral cards was expected to be a done deal within 15 days from the completion of the electoral register to the D-Day. Do they prove enough? Yes and no. The Electoral Commission intends to have the Fokontany store the electoral cards which eventually failed from reaching their due owners. The unfortunate latters would consequently have to queue twice in a row at the polling station on the election day, first to collect their cards, then to cast their vote.

A race against the clock on the D Day

This additional measure is however likely to slow the voting process to a certain extent in each polling station. The citizens who failed from recieving their electoral cards are getting called upon presenting their census blue leaflet on the election day. This is a breach of the electoral law.

The voting process will develop as following: the voter gets registered, fills and folds the unique ballot in privacy, casts the ballot in the box and finally gets his thumb marked with ink. The whole is expected to take three minutes for an average of 400 voters. The challenge consists in encompassing the necessary twenty hours within the available time of ten hours. To this end, the Electoral Commission’s voluntary agents  greatly focus on sensitizing the population on the correct and swift use of the unique ballot: “the voter has to make his choice long before entering the polling station, then fill and fold his ballot correctly within no longer than half a second.” Thinking over and meditating inside a polling station is clearly not welcome.

No sabotage allowed

The electoral process has long been suffering several delays due to the awful development of the political situation which repeatedly deterred the foreign financial backers. The South African Republic’s financial contribution is yet to be expected into the fund basked to secure the electoral day. Although United Nations’ system coordinator emphatically called what has turned into a repression force to order so that they complete their duty and stand against any attempt to disrupt the elections, the security forces’s blackmail has availed. They actually required additional compensation against the completion of their duty on this very day.

Omer Beriziky, the transitional prime minister explained that the political crisis would be put on its way down by the electoral process, and that no particular will to thwart its peaceful and correct development would have been reported so far. He even argued that the transitional leader would not have any of the intentions suspected on him, namely sabotage the elections to his own profit. According to Omer Beriziky, Andry Rajoelina merely reported justified and positive concerns when noticing the problems hampering the completion of a correct process, as an evidence of his “care for the settlement of the crisis through the best possible conditions to the completion of the electoral process.” Not even the first rainfalls have dented the transitional prime minister’s optimism