Parliament to receive presidential candidates’ applications [Archives:2006/960/Local News]
Ismail Al-Ghabri
SANA'A, July 1 ) Parliamentary sources said that the Parliament Council will hold an extraordinary meeting next Monday to call on all presidential candidates to submit their nominations to the Council's Authority in accordance with the law and the constitution. The Parliament will start receiving the applications for the presidential elections in September on July 4.
Putting aside the matter of being legally and constitutionally eligible, the same sources said that the number of those wishing to nominate themselves for the upcoming elections has reached 13 people, tow of them women. The constitution requires a candidate to get at least 5 percent of Parliament members votes to be able to stand in the election.
The Supreme Commission for Elections and Referendum (SCER) confirmed that September 10 will be elections day since September 23 coincides with Ramadan.
Dr. Mohammed Al-Sayani, SCER member and the director of Technical Affairs and Planning, stressed that there has been no decision to postpone elections as has been rumored. He noted that the SCER had sent messages along with laser CDs to political parties, including the quota and sites of electoral committees for each political block in accordance with the agreement signed between the General People's Congress (GPC) and the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), which allocates 54 percent of seats to the GPC and 46 percent to the JMP.
Al-Sayani added that the SCER asked the parties to fill in documents contained on the CDs with the names of their nominees for supervisory, primary, and subcommittee positions within a week and to send them back to the committee to enable it continue the execution of its tasks. As a first step, the SCER, after receiving the names of the nominees, will form primary committees in districts and local constituencies in addition to supervisory committees in the governorates with some 17,922 people.
The second phase will start after July 18 when the contesting period comes to an end, out of which the number of poll boxes and committees will be decided. It will be followed by an announcement for calling electoral committees expected to consist of 90,000 people.
Al-Sayani expressed concern over media statements that targeted the SCER saying “the committee performs its duties on time and according to tasks stated in the constitution. If it happens that the SCER has errored in allocating the quota or anything else, then it can be sued in accordance with law and official means.”
General Prosecution investigates electoral violations
The General Prosecution office continues its investigation of electoral violations that the Supreme Commission on Elections and Referendum (SCER) referred it to. The Prosecutor's office must evaluate the cases and send cases that warrant trial to the judiciary.
SCER informed judicial authorities, represented by the General Prosecutor, of all electoral violations which reached 243,500. Of those cases, 126,000 were of underage voters on the voter rolls and 53,500 were concerned with cases added last month. There are some 64,000 cases of duplicated names.
The General Prosecution has been provided with documents and photos that prove such violations, aiming to make the voters' register free from errors as it is the key element for guaranteeing the conduction of presidential and local conductions in an impartial and safe manner, said Al-Dain.
“The General Prosecution will examine all violations and will take the required actions according to election laws. The measures include suspending the participation of incompetent persons in the forthcoming elections as for underage voters and sending those convicted to the judiciary to decide upon their cases and cancel them from the register.”
Al-Dain noted that the “SCER is keen about the existence of a clean electoral register, free from all defects to ensure electoral process's success.”
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