Birahim Seck, coordinator of the Civil Forum, is the guest of the morning show Salam Senegal on RSI this Tuesday, November 19. In front of journalists, the questions focused a lot on the latest legislative elections in which his organization participated as an observer.
Contribution from the Civil Forum
According to Birahim Seck, the conclusions of their observation reveal that “the elections took place, generally peacefully, in calm, and that the vote did not suffer from transparency or irregularity”. This allowed “citizens to exercise their right freely” because “the electoral administration played its role. Whether it is the general directorate of elections, the CENA, the Ministry of Justice, without forgetting the Ministry of the Interior and the deposit and consignment fund.”
Moreover, adds Birahim Seck, it was on this occasion that the civil forum as the Senegalese section of Transparency International set up “a long-term but also short-term observation system”, to deploy observers on the ground. “Give us information during the height of the campaign. We also set up a system on election day with our observers, with electoral data analysts and data entry operators who allowed us to have very good information, firstly on the opening of polling stations. , on the progress and also the closing” adds coordinator.
A Breakthrough Assembly
Asked what his expectations are on the profile of the future president of the Assembly, the coordinator of the civil forum expects a “rupture Assembly” with a president who can give dignity to the National Assembly who will be able to respond to the expectations of those in power and the opposition for the benefit of citizens.
Could the head of the Pastef list take up this challenge? Asks the journalist
Birahim Seck hopes so but does not advise him either to go to the Assembly or to stay as prime minister. It is up to the current Prime Minister to devalue the parameters. “If you have to stay at the prime minister’s office to continue your work. In this case, according to the coordinator, he must reduce too much noise, because we are moving towards a situation of doing and not saying.” But if he chooses to go to the Hemicycle, “we would like a President of the Assembly who could restore the image of Senegal”. Because “traditionally the Senegalese have a very bad perception of their National Assembly” underlines the coordinator. His wish is “to have a breakaway assembly and for the deputies to comply with constitutional law but also with the internal regulations”.
To do this, Birahim “wants to have deputies who fully exercise the prerogatives conferred on them by the law, through the establishment of parliamentary committees, through positions taken, oral and written questions but above all a freedom of action of the commissions”. In particular the “accounting commission which is often criticized as a commission which does not have budgetary or financial information coming from the National Assembly”.
In reality “we would basically like parliamentarians to implement the evaluation of projects. Since we are in the era of budget implementation. Program” concludes Birahim Seck.
