Date of overdue election yet uncertain

The voter list for long-overdue legislative elections will be complete by August 2009 but no poll date has been set, according to Ben Sekou Sylla, president of the National Independent Election Commission (CENI).



Once voter registration is done and certified, it will be up to junta leader Captain Moussa Dadis Camara to set an election date, Sylla announced on 30 January.



Originally scheduled for late 2007, then late 2008, a national assembly election was among the actions agreed by union leaders, opposition political parties and parliamentarians following widespread civil unrest in early 2007.



Analysts say fair, transparent elections are the only path toward a government that could lift Guinea out of a long period of socio-economic and political unrest.



Opposition parties recently said that election delays were due to a lack of will on the part of the administration of now-deceased President Lansana Conte. The CENI's Sylla has long said lack of funding is to blame.



The 23 December military takeover following Conte’s death threw election plans into fresh doubt.



Observers throughout the country say many technicians hired for the registration process have not been fully paid. Sylla promised salary arrears would be paid to election officials.



In January coup leader Camara ordered that the CENI, a politically independent body charged with planning elections, would no longer be responsible to the Interior Ministry but to the junta, according to Sylla.



mc/aj/np