MECHANICS OF ELECTIONS: ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

UNCLAS ALGIERS 000338 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM AG SUBJECT: MECHANICS OF ELECTIONS: ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT REF: ALGIERS 282 ¶1. (U) Under the February 28 decree that set in motion the May 17 legislative election process, four Algerian government agencies play some role in the preparations. The Ministry of Finance controls the budget for the elections; the Ministry of Information is responsible for scheduling free media access for qualified candidates; the Ministry of Justice ensures that legal procedures are followed; and the Ministry of Interior (MOI) has responsibility for securing and protecting election sites as well as for the logistics of organizing the elections. Each of these ministries stands up an adhoc committee to oversee its part of the process. In the case of MOI, two committees are established. These ministerial committees ultimately report to the prime minister. SLOW AND MESSY LISTS -------------- ¶2. (SBU) All four ministries have repeatedly declined to provide us the names of the officials serving on the committees. We also asked MOI, local attorneys and political parties when the list of registered voters would be ready for the parties' review, under the assumption that political parties may wish to challenge some of the data. According to MOI and the political parties, CD-ROMs containing complete voter data might be released to the political parties on or about March 25. Based on a 2003 amendment to the 1997 election law (an amendment sponsored by the opposition party Islah and adopted by parliament),the voter data must be given to the head of each qualified political party within ten days of the publication of the election decree. Thus, the information should have been made available this year by March 10. Based on our conversations, under a best-case scenario the data will be provided to the political parties one week before the April 1 deadline for party challenges to the lists. ¶3. (SBU) Islah and the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD), two opposition parties, told us they challenged names of registered voters in advance of the 2004 presidential elections. The other political parties said they did not bother to make any challenges that year. Several parties said the lists provided in 2004 were distributed one week prior to the challenge deadline and that the data supplied on the CD-ROMs were not usable. While MOI provided the data for every single voter in 2004 by wilaya (province),the ministry listed the data as a succession of names in no particular order and in a format not allowing for sorting by gender, date of birth, election district, or even city. In short, the data provided amounted to a long string of names that could not be readily reviewed or challenged. MOI and political party sources tell us they expect any data provided this year to be in the same format. MORE ON THE ISLAH CASE -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Hocine Zehouane, an attorney who is also president of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, told us March 10 there was no legal basis for allowing Mohamed Boulahia to hold an Islah party congress after Djaballah was denied permission four times (reftel). Khaled Bourayou, another respected lawyer, concurred. German and Swedish embassy officials told us that the European Union will not send election observers to Algeria this year because Algeria did not make the cut based on available funding. Asked if their embassies were monitoring the events concerning the disqualification of Djaballah's faction of the Islah party, both said they were not. Political officers at the French embassy, in contrast, are in touch with Djaballah and closely following events, but the French have no plans to discuss the matter with the government of Algeria. DAUGHTON