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On December 11, Madagascar elects its new senators. This time, not the entire population is called to the ballot box. Only about 12,000 major voters will vote. These are the country’s 1,700 mayors and all their municipal councilors. Yesterday, in front of the candidates in front of future NGOs who were observers of the election and the financing of the vote, the Independent National Electoral Commission responsible for the organization of the vote presented in particular the news of this election.
as reported from Antananarivo, Sarah Tétaud
“It was an important consultation”, launches with a satisfied air a candidate for the Senate and leaves the meeting organized by CENI.
The biggest news of this future vote is the creation of a single ballot paper per. District in the 114 polling stations in the country and no longer one for each municipality. A big step forward, explains Fano Rakotondrazaka, the main report for Céni.
“Considering that the number of large voters in a municipality is small – we have, for example, 7 or 5 large voters, it was easy (before, editor’s note) to know the choice of voters in the municipality. Now, with the installation of a single polling station in the district capital, the ballot papers in the ballot paper are mixed together; it is a major step towards maintaining the secrecy of the vote. “
Senator HVM Manjany, elected in Majunga, is not running for re-election; he came to hear about the organization of the election and to report to associations that will monitor the election. He welcomes this change very positively, while emphasizing two major risks of this system for certain major voters.
“This year, two mayors were killed by Dahalo [NDLA, bandits, voleurs de zébus]. Uncertainty, especially in districts or isolated regions and long distances, is a risk for voters who come from far and wide to reach the district capital in order to vote. “
The second notable change in this election: a single polling station in the capital instead of the usual five (one per district). However, there is still a large unknown: the actual number of eligible voters. “255 of the 12,000 voters is a problem,” Ceni explains. Elections canceled, mayors and elected officials fired, vacancies, so many cases are still awaiting decisions by the State Council or the Administrative Court whether or not to allow these voters to vote on December 11th.
The propaganda is to start on November 11th. As a reminder, only 14 candidate lists are competing, with the major opposition parties having decided to boycott the election following the decision of the Presidential Ordinance to reduce the number of senators by 3.5.
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