20100111
ABIDJAN, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- Cote d'Ivoire's Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) has ended weeks of operation to tackle contentions over the electoral list, with 512,755 cases corrected out of the 558,623 filed in the run-up to the presidential elections.
The CEI declared an end to the operation on Saturday, an important step toward the polls set for late February and early March, although its chief was accused of having fraudulently put people on the list.
"The time to make electoral complaints over the provisional electoral list came to an end on Jan. 9, 2010 in the entire national territory and beyond the borders," according to a CEI press statement released on Sunday.
It also denied its president Robert Beugre Mambe having given instruction for the registration of any ineligible person.
On Saturday, the spokesman of the presidency blasted the CEI chief on state television, accusing him of registering 429,000 people on the electoral list in "a unilateral and fraudulent manner."
The records of the contentious cases are "available, consultable and verifiable" from the local electoral commission offices, the CEI statement said, adding that its president will "at an opportune time, give more clear information and let everyone make an independent assessment of the situation."
"The president of the independent electoral commission did not at any time take any initiative towards registering anyone who had not lodged a complaint at the local electoral commission offices," the statement said.
The commission said its would assure that "the only people who will be registered on the final electoral list will be those who came from the local CEI offices and were validated by the central commission's supervisor."
On Wednesday, President Laurent Gbagbo clearly demanded the extension of time to lodge complains, so that "all Ivorians can be registered on the electoral list and that the foreigners can be excluded."
The check of the complains was kicked off on Nov. 26 for a period of 38 days, before being extended for 10 days. It involved 1.03 million cases. The validated electoral list has 5.3 million people.
The preparation of the provisional electoral list will lead to the establishment of the final list and distribution of the voter card before the opening of the campaign period for the election, the first in the West African country since 2005.
|