The burning of ballot papers postponed

The burning of ballot papers printed in Senegal for the presidential election on 27 February has been postponed indefinitely at the request of the Observatoire national des elections, AFP reported informed sources as saying on Tuesday. Interior Minister Lamine Cisse originally announced that the ballots would have been burnt on Tuesday. He had said that a separate set of ballots that could not be copied or falsified had been printed in Israel but that the order for the locally produced set had not been cancelled in case the Israeli ones failed to arrive in time for the vote. Meanwhile opposition presidential candidate Abdoulaye Wade, head of the Parti democratique Senegalais (PDS), has called for a new set of ballot papers to be printed in France claiming that the set done in Israel favoured President Abdou Diouf, who is seeking re-election, AFP said. The opposition has frequently accused the ruling Parti socialiste, in power since independence in 1960, of rigging elections.