POLITICS: Election observation is it still fashionable?

Several hundred requests from associations and NGOs reached with the authorities to send observers during the presidential election on 25 April.

To this must be added those to be sent by ECOWAS and the African Union.

We should have nearly 500 foreign observers on election day.

The International Organization of the Francophonie (OIF) favor a different approach.

'Our approach is to learn about the voting process, but not to observe technical way as we used to do in the past. We favor strengthening the capacities of structures in charge of the electoral process. International election observation has less impact, it must be recognized, "explains Siaka Sangare, President of the Network of Francophone Electoral Skills, mandated by the OIF to participate in the consolidation of the electoral register.

If the observation was useful in the 90s, is still today?

Siaka Sangare and many others with him ask this question.

To cover the 9,000 polling stations would require as many observers and even more.

And finally, the best observers are they not the representatives of the candidates themselves present in each office to monitor the voting process and to report, if any, problems.

The government has provided the Electoral Commission with a budget of 72 million CFA francs to allow the parties to pay their delegates. In addition to the five candidates have received assistance from 600 million to finance their campaigns.

As many pledges of a transparent election.