POLITICAL PARTIES FINALIZE THEIR LISTS FOR APRIL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BAMAKO 000173 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM ML SUBJECT: POLITICAL PARTIES FINALIZE THEIR LISTS FOR APRIL LOCAL ELECTIONS REF: A. BAMAKO 00073 ¶B. BAMAKO 00027 1.(SBU) Summary: The deadline for Mali's political parties to submit their candidate lists for upcoming local elections expired at midnight on March 11. As usual, the run-up to the deadline was occasion for substantial internal jockeying within Mali's major political groupings over the composition and ordering of candidate lists. The names of several notable political leaders, including National Assembly second vice president Assarid ag Imbarcaouane and former Minister of Territorial Administration Ousmane Sy, have appeared at the top of party lists for the local elections. Ag Imbarcaouane and Sy may have their sights on the presidency of the High Council of Collectivities (HCC),which is Mali's largely ceremonial second house of parliament and likely slated to be converted into a Senate with greater powers. Meanwhile, Mali's central election authority has begun personalizing approximately 8 million voter cards. By law Mali must start distributing voter cards to citizens by March 26, one month prior to election day. End Summary. -------------- Party Lists and Back Room Dealing -------------- 2.(SBU) A total of 10,777 communal council seats are up for grabs in Mali's upcoming municipal elections on April 26. Instead of voting for specific candidates, Mali's estimated 8 million electors vote for party lists. Local councilors are then selected by proportional representation, meaning that the better a party list does on election day, the more individuals on that list will be seated as councilors. The deadline for the political parties to submit their candidate lists was midnight on March 11. Local councilors select representatives to Mali's Regional Assemblies and the High Council of Collectivities (HCC) from among their own ranks. 3.(SBU) In several of Mali's largest political groupings, controversy enveloped the process of crafting candidate lists. Many individuals with political ambition gravitated to whichever political party or independent grouping offered the highest ranking to maximize their chances of election. Mali's three largest political parties - the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (ADEMA),Union for Democracy and the Republic (URD),opposition Rally for Mali (RPM) - all lost several senior officials at the local level to defection or disgruntlement. Perhaps the most high profile defection was Alima Coulibaly Traore, the sister of National Assembly president and ADEMA leader Diouncounda Troare. Madame Traore engineered a very public resignation from ADEMA after suffering the humiliation of being placed 27th out of 27 candidates on ADEMA's candidate list for Bamako's second district. 4.(SBU) The second vice president of Mali's National Assembly, Assarid ag Imbarcaouane, who is an Imghad Tuareg leader from Gao, placed his name at the top of ADEMA's list for the commune of Djebock, 45 KM east of Gao. Ag Imbarcaouane would have to resign his National Assembly seat if successful. Local newspapers and others in Bamako have speculated that ag Imbarcaouane is angling to become President of the HCC. The Malian government is in the process of reviewing recommendations to convert the HCC into a Senate, based on the French model, with slightly expanded powers and this has likely rendered the post of HCC president somewhat more attractive. Ousmane Sy, who was Minister of Territorial Administration under former President Alpha Oumar Konare, tops ADEMA's candidate list in Bandiagara and is, like ag Imbarcaouane, also believed to have his eye on the eventual job of President of the Malian Senate. -------------- Money Talks -------------- 5.(SBU) The Malian press has reported that the list preparation this year was overwhelmingly influenced by candidates' financial contributions to the party campaign chests. One political cartoon in a local newspaper showed an aspiring candidate telling the party boss, "I don't have money but I can mobilize voters," while the party boss replies, "It's cash or nothing." Other Malian newspapers report that candidates paid from 1 million to 5 million FCFA (roughly 50,000 to 250,000 USD) to be placed on the top of their party list. The political parties have reportedly asked for financial contributions from candidates due to the inadequacy of public financing and support from party members. BAMAKO 00000173 002 OF 003 -------------- Mali's Ever-Expanding Voter Rolls -------------- 6.(SBU) On March 9 Malian television reported that 5 million of the 8 million blank electoral cards ordered by Mali's General Election Authority (DGE) had arrived, and that printing was expected to begin on March 10. The number of voter cards ordered has been a contentious point of dispute as opposition parties suspect the Malian government of inflating voter rolls to facilitate election day fraud. Opposition leaders began calling for an audit of Mali's electoral rolls prior to the presidential and legislative elections of 2007. This demand resurfaced recently as opposition parties contend that inaccurate voter lists will enable phantom voters to case multiple ballots on election day (Ref. A). This complaint gained momentum in February when Jeune Afrique published excerpts of an internal DGE report detailing multiple problems with Mali's electoral list. The entire DGE report was subsequently released by the Malian government and reprinted in local media. 7.(SBu) On February 24, DGE Director Col. Siaka Sangare told the Embassy that Mali's voter lists were flawed, but took issue with the opposition's proposed remedy of delaying elections until the lists can be completely overhauled. Col. Sangare noted that Mali's electoral rolls have expanded significantly over recent years, from 5.2 million voters in 2002 to nearly 6.9 million in 2007 - a rise of nearly 20 percent. In 2008 this number surpassed 7.2 million and Col. Sangare said the Mali's electoral list was now hovering near 8 million names. He noted that it was likely impossible for Mali, whose population is estimated at between 12 to 14 million, to have 8 million citizens of voter age. Col. Sangare attributed the over-sized nature of the electoral list to an administrative inability to keep track of individuals who may be registered several times in different neighborhoods due to a change of address, and failures to regularly report citizen deaths. Col. Sangare estimated that 70 percent of deaths in Mali are never reported to civil authorities, meaning that many of the names on Mali's electoral list, which has not been fully updated since 1992, are individuals who are no longer alive but for whom no official death certificate was ever issued. 8.(SBU) Col. Sangare said the commonality of Malian names posed another serious challenge, and it is not unusual to find many individuals with the exact same first and last names among the list of voters registered for specific polling places. To complicate matters further, since many births also go unreported, it is not unusual for individuals to have the same vague birth date - either a default December 31 birth date entered by government administrators or just a year with no specific date recorded. During a March 2 meeting with the Embassy, several members of Mali's Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) also discussed problems with the voter lists but dismissed opposition recommendations for remedying these flaws. 9.(SBU) One opposition proposal which has gained some traction is the cancellation of all voter cards that were not picked up by voters during the 2007 legislative and presidential elections. CENI representatives said this idea was impracticable because it assumes that 100 percent of legitimate, existing registered voters collected their voter cards in 2007 and would therefore disenfranchise all voters who either decided not to vote or were unable to collect their voter cards due to travel, illness or other reasons. 10.(SBU) Col. Sangare and the CENI agreed that the best and only way to revise Mali's electoral lists is through Mali's nationwide census and voter identification program, known as RAVEC (Ref. B). Malian authorities had hoped RAVEC, which will create a national database complete with digitized fingerprints of every Malian over the age of 15, would be complete in advance of the April 2009 local elections. The program, which is primarily funded by Canadian and EU donors, has suffered innumerable delays due to disorganization and budget over-runs and likely now will not be completed before the end of 2009. RAVEC's original budget was estimated at around 7 billion CFA, or USD 14 million. According to Col. Sangare, current budget estimates project a cost of between 12 to 14 billion CFA, or as much as USD 28 million. -------------- A Tight Administrative Timeline -------------- 11.(SBU) According to Malian law, voter card distribution must begin one month prior to the election date, which gives BAMAKO 00000173 003 OF 003 Malian election authorities until March 26 to personalize all 8 million blank voter cards. During our February 24 meeting with the DGE, Col. Sangare said the timeline for organizing the elections per Malian laws was "tight, tight, tight" but that he believed the DGE at least would meet its legal obligations. The Malian press subsequently reported that while the blank voter cards were received only one day behind schedule, printing had yet to begin because the DGE was awaiting specialized printer ribbons on order from a vendor in the United States. On March 18 Col. Sangare, who is currently in Conakry providing consulting services to the Guinean independent electoral commission, told the Embassy that the printer ribbons had arrived and that voter card printing was proceeding as scheduled. -------------- Comment: Masters of the Last Minute -------------- 12.(SBU) Despite the apparent challenges to holding local elections on April 26, Malians are masters of last minute planning and there is no indication that the elections will be delayed due to either opposition complaints or administrative hang ups. Given the sheer scale of Mali's local elections - there are nearly 11,000 positions up for grabs and tens of thousands of registered candidates - it can be hard to grasp the actual import of the elections. The results will be the first indication of which parties are best positioned to replace President Amadou Toumani Toure when his second and final term expires in 2012. The stakes this year are also high due to jockeying over who may get to lead the HCC, a job that has suddenly become more attractive now that Mali appears poised to transform this body into a more prestigious sounding Senate. MILOVANOVIC