Senegal: Are the Electoral Rolls Corrupt?

UNCLAS DAKAR 000252

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE

DEPT FOR AF/W, AF/RSA, DRL AND INR/AA
PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINS KDEM ECON SG
SUBJECT: Senegal: Are the Electoral Rolls Corrupt?


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: On February 24, Embassy Pol staff debriefed two
computer experts who audited the national electoral database on
February 10-11, 2009. The audit was requested by the coalition of
opposition parties and was conducted with the concurrence and
support of the Ministry of Interior that runs the database and
organizes all elections in Senegal. The experts concluded that the
database is irredeemably flawed. For the first time, it seems as if
the opposition has concrete evidence of at least incompetence or, at
worst, fraud that may cast a shadow over the reliability of the
elections results. End Summary.

What's in a name?
--------------

2. (SBU) Prior to the 2007 presidential elections, the opposition
had conducted an audit of the electoral database containing all
registered voters and did not find anything amiss. Two weeks ago,
they repeated the same process audit but this time they seemed to
have been less fortunate. The leading expert on the team, Iba
Gueye, told Embassy, "I don't know what led me to ask to see a
breakdown of the list by family names." Upon closer inspection,
Gueye discovered 17,825 family names, this in a country where the
number of family names is very limited (many Senegalese are named
Ndiaye "njaay" or Diop, "joop"). Gueye continued, "By the looks of
it, real Senegalese names were taken and then new ones were created
by adding and removing letters. Take for example the name Balde (of
which there were 49,824 entries in the database); in the list Balde
is preceded or followed by variants such as BALD, BALDECK, BALDEF
BALDA or BAL DEE. What worries me the most is that all these names
represent legally registered voters, who have been assigned to
polling stations and who have legitimate national identity and voter
cards. But, clearly these names are not Senegalese. What's worse
is that the list is full of such variants that cannot realistically
be accounted for by claiming that they are there because of a
clerical or data entry error." Gueye added that when they asked for
the addresses of the aforementioned voters the system failed to
respond.

Inconsistencies
--------------

3. (SBU) The auditors noted that on February 2, 2009 there were
4,818,913 registered voters; an increase of 62,571 from the January
31, 2007 audit when the figure was 4,756,342, "logically, these all
should be newly registered voters." But when they conducted a
search of new voters, the computer tech at the Ministry found only
6,715 new voters in the database; a discrepancy of 55,856 voters
"who may or may not be real." Furthermore, the recent creation of
three new regions meant that a total of 872,407 voters have to have
their cards reprinted to reflect the new administrative entities in
which they live. If this figure is added to the 6,715 newly
registered voters it should lead to the conclusion that only 934,311
new voters cards need to be printed. When auditors questioned the
Ministry's card production unit they were told that 1,416,716 cards
have been printed since January 31, 2007.

Cosmetic biometry
--------------

4. (SBU) President Abdoulaye Wade recently lauded the digitization
of the electoral process with the introduction of digital
fingerprinting for voter cards. However, the auditors observed that
neither the card printing unit nor the voter registration unit was
linked to any sort of biometric database. Thus, with only text
files that are not backed up by any biometric security features
these two units could, conceivably, create and modify entries at
will. Meanwhile, even though the voter card is bar-coded, it is
very unlikely that any polling station will be equipped with barcode
readers or computers. In fact, during the last Presidential
election Poloff witnessed votes being counted by candle light
because the school at which the voting station was located had no
electricity.

Rejection and Manipulation
--------------

5. (SBU) The Ministry of Interior has already said that it will
ignore the findings of the auditors because the latter did not
present a report to the GOS at the conclusion of their mission.
Furthermore, the Minister of Interior, Cheikh Tidiane Sy, has
rejected the opposition's demand that an ultraviolet spray be used
instead of indelible ink to prevent multiple voting. The auditors
insist on using the spray, which was used in Bosnia, because it is
more reliable than indelible ink which can be rendered ineffective
by rubbing grease on one's finger prior to dipping it into the ink.
It is also interesting that Minister Sy's son, Mame Ousmane Sy, is
President Wade's IT advisor and is allegedly the guru who tinkers
with the electoral data base; a fact confirmed by an Embassy contact
who was an advisor to the President.

Comment
--------------

6. (SBU) Leading members of the opposition have told Poloff that
they are putting in place "brigades" that will physically prevent
registered foreigners (Guineans from Conakry or Bissau) from voting.
Each candidate has been instructed to remain at his polling station
and an "informal identification process" will be in place to limit
fraud. As the elections approach the rhetoric is getting more and
more inflammatory and this might pave the way to election day
violence, especially if the opposition can use the results of the
audit to somehow persuade the public that the ruling party is using
fraud to assure itself of victory.

Bernicat