Minister pegs municipal poll on donor aid

Municipal elections in the Central African Republic (CAR), scheduled for December, will be held only if the country receives adequate donor funding, the minister in charge of the government's secretariat, Zarambaud Assingambi, said on Saturday. State-owned Television Centrafricaine quoted Assingambi as saying that the decision was reached at a cabinet meeting on Thursday, when the government realised that the current situation of the public treasury and finances could not allow it to hold the poll. Assingambi made the announcement three days after he released the country's electoral calendar, which had scheduled the municipal elections to be held first, followed by parliamentary and presidential polls, to be held simultaneously between December 2004 and January 2005. He had said that the budget for the entire electoral process would be set after talks with donors. Municipal elections have never been held in the CAR despite the provisions of the 1995 constitution that current leader Francois Bozize dissolved soon after his 15 March 2003 coup against Ange-Felix Patasse. The country's towns have been led by mayors appointed by the president. The country's constitution is to be revised between January and May while a constitutional referendum is scheduled for November. An electoral body, to be known as the Commission Electorale Mixte Independante, is due to be set up in January and February, to assist Interior Minister Marcel Malonga in conducting an electoral census in April through June, the constitutional referendum and the elections. Meanwhile, a group of leading figures of the former ruling Mouvement de liberation du peuple Centrafricain (MLPC) has officially rejected its chairman Patasse, in exile in Togo since his ouster, and formed what they called MLPC-Original Trend (Courant Originel). "We are strongly opposed to untimely declarations and personal attacks by Patasse's supporters inside and outside the country," Desire Pendemo, said on Saturday in Bangui. Pendomo, who is the transport and civil aviation junior minister and member of the MLPC Original-Trend coordination, was speaking at a conference attended by officials of other political parties and diplomats. The former deputy speaker of the dissolved National Assembly and MLPC vice-chairman, Hugues Dobozendi; Patasse's former communication minister and current Bozize adviser Francis Ouakanga; and current Livestock Minister Denis Kossibela are also in the new group, which said it would call a congress to put in place a new party leadership. Pendemo said the MLPC Original-Trend had also denounced Patasse's formation of a rebel movement, the Front de liberation du peuple Centrafricain, which it considered as an "act of high treason". The latest development took place after months of internal misunderstanding within the MLPC, which has two representatives in the government: Kossibela and Pendemo. Dobozendi represents the party in the National Transitional Council, the CAR law advisory body. Pendemo said the MPLC Original-Trend would prepare for the coming elections.