Tough political battles in National Assembly on the LEPI are predicted
THERE IS APPREHENSION ABOUT FIERCE BATTLES IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OVER THE VOTERS’ REGISTRY COMPUTERIZATION PROJECT (IN FRENCH, LISTE ELECTORALE PERMANENTE INFORMATISÉE: LEPI) AS TWO PROPOSED BILLS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED TO THE SPEAKER OF THE PARLIAMENT ON THE SAME LAW.
The first proposal has been made by the MP Karimou Chabi SIKA, member of the ruling FCBE and the second, by the MP Epiphane QUENUM, member of the RB which belongs to the G4 alliance.
The LEPI aims at improving the Benin electoral system which has been manual and subject to controversies till now. Since the beginning of the democratic era in Benin, almost all the elections (local, general or presidential) that took place in the country ended up in acrimonious disputes. It is why in order to avoid a potential electoral crisis each side of political landscape, the Government and the opposition are eager to have the LEPI for the 2011 presidential contest.
However, as each side is willing to have a tight hold of the process, the issue has now become a highly sensitive subject. Of course, there are some common grounds in the two bills but are also divergences.
The mainly contentious issue is likely to be the composition and prerogatives of the body (MINERA) which will conduct the LEPI implementation.
While the first bill suggests a body dominated by politicians, the second one favors a body which is politically neutral and is made up of personalities endowed with special expertise.
The MP Chabi SIKA proposed that the number of the MINERA members is fifteen (15), three (03) members appointed by the Head of State, nine (09) by the National Assembly as each parliamentarian group will have to provide at least one (01) member in order to assure the representativeness of all factions, two (02) by the Civil Society, one (01) by SAP/CENA.
His counterpart, MP Epiphane QUENUM that the MINERA is made up of nine (09) members, one (01) judge, one (01) demographer, one (01) sociologist, one (01) specialist of Information Technology, one (01) statistician, a mapping specialist, and one (01) election specialist.
QUENUM’s bill also provides an Executive Committee composed of three members to oversee the MINERA. The committee’s President will be appointed by the Head of State, by an executive order on the advice of Supreme Court President. The second should be an accountant manager, a secretary reporter appointed by their peers.
Apart from the composition of MINERA, there may be differences in the phases for the LEPI implementation. In fact, before the computerization of voters’ registry, some preparatory operations have to be performed mainly an electoral census.
According to the bill introduced the Speaker of the National Assembly by MP Chabi SIKA, there are three steps to follow, for this census to be conducted successfully: an electoral map need to be drawn up, the count house by house of the population aged from ten (10) has to be done and finally personal, individual and digital data of the electorate will be recorded.
The MP Epiphane QUENUM figures out five steps to follow regarding the census: electoral mapping, electoral census of the population aged from fourteen (14), electoral registration, LEPI implementation and delivery of electoral card.
Regarding the supervision of these preparatory operations, the MP Chabi SIKA suggests it is done by a National Committee for Technical Supervision (in French Comité National de Supervision technique: CNST) which acts under the MINERA, while the MP Epiphane QUENUM thinks due to the need for technical and professional skills and competences in the drawing up the electoral map, it would advisable to have professional organizations with evident experiences at the national level to oversee them.
Anyway, these two drafts definitely show the willingness of each side to see the LEPI be implemented. Nevertheless, a successful outcome requires some conditions.
First of all, considering the past experiences of election in Benin and the results obtained previously by the CENA, it might be better those intuitions which are politically neutral supervise the different operations. If this important issue of politicization is not fully considered, those institutions may have to work in difficult conditions knowing the bitter rivalries and mistrust between the different camps.
Another factor may cause the failure of the process is the inability on part of each side to make compromises.
