Algeria: Boutbik’s commission dubs April 17 presidential election as fair and transparent

The chairman of the independent National Commission for the monitoring of elections (Cnisel) Fateh Boutbik, gave on Sunday in Algiers an overview of the commission’s final fact-finding report on the conduct of the April 17 presidential polls in Algeria.

Mr. Boutbik, who earlier met with officials of the 48 provincial election commissions, recalled firstly that the Cnisel commission has “neither the possibility nor the intention, still less the vocation, to debate or to call into question the final results of the April 17 presidential elections, officially decreed by the Constitutional Council”.

The role of the Commission, he said on the occasion, was to follow up the electoral process before, during and after the election.

“Our task was to supervise the required implementation by the administration of all the regulatory conditions laid down by the laws concerning the smooth organization of the election”, Mr Fateh Boutbik further explained.

The commission’s final report, he said, could serve as a platform likely to help initiate a broad-based debate on political reforms and legal measures with a view to upgrading the next voting operations in Algeria, while noting that the April 17 presidential elections were devoid of any fraud or irregularities and that the voting process had, on the whole, gone smoothly across the national territory.

The assessment report drafted by the CNISEL commission about the conduct of April 17 presidential polls will be forwarded for appreciation to the President of the Republic in late May 2014.