Electoral issues: political urgency and single ballot

It is the first time ever that Beatrice Attalah, from the CENIT, and Fatma Samoura, from the UNDP, jointly and as so directly challenge both government and political class in the electoral process. The amnesty law must be passed as early as possible! Five months to the presidential election, there is an official emergency. The CENIT and its partners from the International Community want this amnesty to be a done deal within the coming weeks, more specifically before the deadline to the applications is met.

The reasons to this call happen to be purely technical. The single voting ballots must be printed and the voters in Madagascar, entitled to the sufficiently long opportunity to know the candidates. According to Fatma Samoura, knowing the candidates to a presidential election at least 120 days before the competition is essential, even applications are accepted up to 90 days to the vote. This extra month provides with more ground to maneuver with the single ballot issue. “Dealing with 13 candidates is actually not the same as dealing with 30 candidates,” said the United Nations’ spokeswoman. According to her, knowing the number of candidates in advance will decisively serve the assessment of the number of required sheets.

Voters will actually not only have to get used to the candidates but to the famous ballot as well, considering that it will be put in use for the first time ever. The experience is considered as new since nobody seems to take the referendum imposed back in 2010 in account. As a reminder, this masquerade served Rajoelina’s will to remain in power as long as wanted during an unlimited transition, and more particularly his intentions to run and win the presidential race while keeping the legal president ousted in 2009 out of it. All these efforts for nothing. The CENIT’s mission also consists in popularizing the use of the new ballot.

At the same time, the International Community would really like to make sure that more than 10 million ballots will be printed in time. This does not necessarily mean that ballots are going to be printed before the applications officially get received. More than anyone else, the CENIT wants the political the technical preparations to be completed.
Beatrice Attalah called the Malagasy political class to take responsibility and pass as early as possible this amnesty law. Some declared candidates like Pierrot Rajaonarivelo and the usual political sharks like Jean Eugène Voninahitsy and Pety Rakotoniaina do press at least just as much.

Waiting for the Rajoelina sphere to quit its blackmail will require patience. What will be its next conditions? Its Minister of Justice can do no much more than pushing for the denial of the amnesty to some figures threatened by her political condemnation, among others Marc Ravalomanana, .

The Reconciliation Committee is on its feet, however not yet operational. An amnesty to be passed after the elections was expected to rule the transitional ruling power’s opponents aside. The fact that Rajoelina and Ravalomanana pulled out of the race although being the main decision makers in the run of the crisis as well as the main figures in need of an amnesty, has not contributed to simplify the situation. Small calculations and political bargaining are still far from over.