“Independent Election Monitoring Authority” Required To Allay Politicians’ Fears

With the passage of two weeks of the signatures’ gathering in anticipation for the upcoming legislative elections on June 12th 2021, many urgent questions have come to the fore regarding ensuring equal opportunities for all vying candidates, and more than that, guaranteeing the integrity and transparency of the upcoming polls.

The independent election monitoring authority “ANIE” issued many statements and directives meant to smoothly organize the electoral process, and its president staged press briefings that were predominantly technical in nature, as he confined himself to presenting the numbers related to the lists of candidates and the withdrawal of the required applications forms.

However, many of those concerned with the upcoming voting contest see that there are many shadow points which weren’t highlighted by the independent election monitoring authority.

Although the new organic law related to the election system issued at the beginning of this month provides for the frameworks of the electoral process, it did not fully cover its merits and small details remain unanswered, which led to a discrepancy in procedures between one provincial committee and another, as there are some provincial committees which require a fingerprint when withdrawing subscription forms and there are also provincial committees that only require a list of the number of seats required for the province concerned accompanied by their signatures, and this untoward situation has left some citizens in a state of bafflement and suspicion.

In order to avert any misinterpretation or adverse reading, the ANIE authority should have issued a statement explaining the conduct of all the electoral process from A to Z.

Even though the statement circulated by the independent election authority at the beginning of this week, was devoted to the issue of ratification and approval of application forms to subscribe to signatures, it however neglected the procedure defining the prior conditions for withdrawing signature forms.

This, technically, and politically speaking, there are many concerns expressed by more than one political party, including what was stated by the head of the Movement for the Society of Peace, Abderazak Makri in his latest visits to the provinces of Naama and Saida, during which he accused Consuls and administration executives, of seeking to influence the outcome of the upcoming polls.
According to Mr. Makri, “There is a Consul in an Algerian consulate in an Arab country who personally supervises and supports the drawing up of an independent list, and there are officials at the level of some provinces who act contrary to what President Abdelmaddjid Tebboune pledged in terms of equity and transparency by grossly interfering in the setting up of the electoral lists”.

These concerns coincide with another statement by the head of the Bina movement, namely Abdelkader Bengrina, who called on his party’s militants to defend the integrity and transparency of the June 12th parliamentary elections.

President Tebboune stressed in the message he delivered on the occasion of the recent “Victory Day” anniversary celebration that he provided all the integrity factors for future spin-offs, when he said: “The date of June 12th will be surrounded with all guarantees of integrity, so as to build the state of bona-fide institutions by the sovereign will of the people through free democratic choice and through honest competition by causing a radical break with the nefarious practices of shame and scandals of the past”.