Côte d’Ivoire / UNOCI chief discusses electoral process with ECOWAS observers
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast, October 27, 2010/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Côte d’Ivoire, Y.J. Choi, had a meeting on Tuesday at the headquarters of the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) with a delegation of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) observers who were seeking information on the organisation of the Ivorian elections.
At the end of the meeting, delegation leader Theodore Holo, who is the president of Benin’s constitutional court, told the press that Mr. Choi had informed them on the arrangements UNOCI had made to deploy all the electoral material on the ground. “No election can be organised without the existence or deployment of electoral material and UNOCI has the means to ensure that,” he said. He added that he had been briefed on UNOCI’s support with regard to the distribution of identity and voters cards.
The head of the ECOWAS observer team promised to stay in contact with UNOCI to exchange information and ensure that both sides had the same perception of the process, and he added that the quality of the observation depended on the quality of the elections. Mr Holo said he was reassured by the guarantees and perspectives coming out of the discussions, and stressed that it was also important for the observers to meet the different Ivorian political actors as well as the heads of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC)
ECOWAS has been involved in observing elections since the 2001 Dakar Protocol. Within this framework, 200 observers from the sub-regional institution will be deployed throughout the Ivorian territory for the presidential poll to be held on 31 October 2010.
SOURCE
Mission of UN in Côte d’Ivoire
