Thousands demonstrate to demand for transparent poll in Senegal

Several thousands of Senegalese opposition party supporters took to the street in Dakar Wednesday afternoon to demand free and fair presidential elections slated for February 27.

The demonstration staged by mainly young people, was called by a grouping of 17 opposition parties, known as the "Front for the Regularity and Transparency of Elections."

The authorized rally was attended by several opposition leaders, including Abdoulaye Wade, Djibo Ka, Moustapha Niasse, Iba Der Thiam, who are challenging president Abdou Diouf in the forthcoming poll.

The demonstration was to protest against the decision by the interior minister, Gen. Lamine Cisse, to print voters' cards in Israel without informing the contesting parties and the National Election Observatory, which is the poll's control organ.

Cisse explained his action recently saying that the first batch of locally-printed voters' cards can be forged while those from Israeli were not.

The demonstrators started their march from Boulevard General De Gaulle, near the headquarters of Wade's Senegalese Democratic Party, and headed to the ministry of the interior in central Dakar to submit a memorandum to Cisse.

According to a private Senegalese radio, Sud FM, a similar demonstration was held Wednesday morning in the northern town of Louga, Diouf's hometown.

The radio added, however, that another demonstration which was scheduled to be held in the troubled southern Ziguinchor region was not authorized because the government is currently engaged in peace talks with the insurgents fighting for that area's autonomy from the rest of Senegal, MAP repoted.