Transitional calendar revised

A committee set up by the government of the Central African Republic to oversee implementation of recommendations made at the end of a national reconciliation forum in mid-October has revised the country's transition calendar. A communique read on Sunday on state-owned Radio Centrafrique by the committee's chairperson, Catherine Samba-Panza, said the country's constitutional referendum would now be held in September 2004 instead of mid-2004 as announced by CAR leader Francois Bozize soon after he seized power on 15 March from President Ange-Felix Patasse. General elections, earlier set for the third and last quarter of 2004, would now be held between November 2004 and April 2005, the committee announced. Samba-Panza said that electoral lists and the revision of the country's electoral code would be completed by January 2004 and an electoral census held between December 2003 and April 2004. According to Bozize's initial calendar, a new president would have been sworn in during January 2005. He had stated that he would not contest the presidential election. The September-October reconciliation forum recommended a reversal of the elections order, starting with municipal and legislative elections and ending with the presidential election. The communique did not indicate when the transitional period would end. The implementation committee issued the communique two days after French Cooperation Minister Pierre Andre Wiltzer visited the country and congratulated the government for acting on its commitments. He urged the government to respect the transitional calendar. At the same time, the EU, which recently completed its report on the CAR, has decided to resume cooperation with the country, except for some road repair and macro-economic projects whose implementation would depend on the government's action on the remaining commitments. Set up in November and comprising 21 members, the Comite de Suivi des Actes du Dialogue National, was mandated to oversee the implementation of the dialogue’s recommendations in areas such as truth and reconciliation; politics and diplomacy; defence and security; economy and finances and educational, social and cultural issues.