Bouteflika: Instructions for a transparent presidential

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika assured international observers that they will have ...complete freedom to control... the conduct of the presidential election on 9 April and that the legal dispositions provide ...transparency and required regularity....

•     In a presidential instruction, published in the Journal, Mr Bouteflika says that international observers will have the possibility to control the conditions under which the presidential election will run and may, therefore, attest to the sincerity of its result.”
  
      Observers "with the proven integrity" of the UN, the African Union (AU) and Arab League have been invited to monitor the election.
  
      The outgoing president stressed that “the legal national electoral offer all the guarantees for a free and transparent election” including the establishment of a political Commission of the election oversight.
  
      According to this instruction, the members of the monitoring mechanism and international observers have the necessary facilities to monitor the conduct of all elections.
  
      “The necessary measures must also be taken to allow representatives of candidates (...) to effectively exercise their right to control all the voting, counting of ballots and counting of votes in all premises where these operations takes place,” Mr. Bouteflika adds.
  
      These candidates must be subject to due process by the public media, both during the election campaign and during the period preceding it.
  
      In its inquiry, the President Bouteflika recalled the prohibition of the use of human and material resources of the state for electoral purposes.
  
      Mr. Bouteflika, 72, elected in 1999 and re-elected in 2004, announced his candidacy Thursday.
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• Ennaharonline/ M. O