Demonstration seen as important for democracy

A protest on Wednesday by several thousand opposition party supporters and leaders against what they said were the ruling party's attempts to rig elections on 27 February was "extremely important" for democracy in Senegal, a local analyst told IRIN. "It the first time that such a demonstration has been authorised," said Alieu Tine, head of a human rights and electoral monitoring group called the Rencontre Africaine pour le defense de droit de l'homme (RADDHO). "It was calm and the police did not charge." Sources in Dakar said police stood impassively as the protestors walked through major streets of the Senegalese capital calling for the resignation of President Abdou Diouf and Interior Minister Lamine Cisse. Sud FM, a private broadcaster, reported that a similar protest was held Wednesday in Diouf's home town of Louga, in the north of the country. However, it said, a planned demonstration was banned in the troubled southern region of Ziguinchor, where government troops and separatists are observing an uneasy ceasefire. Leading presidential candidates - Abdoulaye Wade, Djibo Ka, Moustapha Niasse and Iba Der Thiam - led the demonstration in Dakar, which ended with the presentation of a petition to Cisse. The protesters are demanding that he scrap voters' cards printed in Israel and use the locally fabricated versions. The government explained some weeks ago that it had the local cards printed in case those manufactured in Israel did not arrive in time for the polls. "The locally printed cards conform more to the laws of Senegal than the Israeli cards," Tine said. But Cisse has insisted on the use of the Israeli-made cards because, he said, they could not be forged. The locally printed ones are in storage and due for destruction. The demonstration was organised and led by a group of 17 opposition parties calling themselves the Front pour la regularite et la transparence des elections (The Front for the Regularity and Transparency of Elections). The body maintains that the government has sent the voters' list to Israel with the aim of removing the names of opposition voters from the document. "This is very hard to prove," one media source told IRIN. Nevertheless, Tine said, the National Electoral Observatory, ONEL, has agreed to the opposition's request that the voters' list be audited.