Cost and Price
For several weeks, the government and the Cena do not get on the conditions of transportation of equipments for the forthcoming legislative elections. From both sides, every one has its arguments. The government regrets the high cost proposed by the Cena and prefers to appeal to the military engineering at an unbeatable cost. The Cena is defending some kind of legal rationality.
The parties of the kernel of the power support the government; they assert that the country cannot afford half a billion in the logistics of material transportation while the job could be done for 20 millions.
As for the Cena and peripheral parties they consider that if it were to be effective the raid of the servicemen in the electoral process would be inopportune. They utter doubts and even suspicions on the merits of such a proposition. The parties of the suburb of the Power and more generally those who do not avoid their membership to the opposition, although they betray it more often than not, use legal and ethical arguments. Hand on the heart, they remind in choir that since the democratic revival, the army made wish to be held away from politics and from organization of elections. They call upon the neutrality of the army asserted at the National Conference.
Here are thus two systems of arguments and two opposite camps; each one taking refuge behind its arguments and its convictions otherwise its interests.
In fine, and to speak aloud the mind of the common, every part suspects the other one of unrefined ulterior motives if not of fraudulent intentions.
As for the government, the economic justification looks sound. Development partners contribute in a significant share to the organization of the elections, and they consider that their cost is exaggerated.
We thus have to save, revise our way of spending. But behind economic reasons, lays as well a suspicion if not the certainty as the expenses are over invoiced and the money distracted from its real purposes at all level. This is regrettably a truth which nobody can deny. There is indeed an election-business, and people for whom the organization of the elections is a chance of a lifetime. This indecent drift is a fact of culture. Were it not the case at least since the beginning of the Revival the current Change wanted by the people would be only a luxury. But the Change is an ultimate necessity. It is our last card. Hence, the position of the government does not lack coherence. By refusing to throw money through the window, including and especially for the organization of the elections, it plays its role of engine of Change. It preaches the good example at the right time. While watching the grain, government also sends signals to our partners: it is good for the image of the country.
On the other hand, and to continue to say things such as they are thought, the opposite camp is not badly off. First of all in strictly legal term, the Cena is an autonomous commission. By expressing reluctance against the proposition of the government to entrust the transportation of the electoral equipment to the military engineering it is in its role and right. It asserts and defends its autonomy. In broad political terms, the fear of the parties which are not in the hard core of the Power is that this appeal to the military engineering hides a prescription of organized fraud. They call for it upon the psychology and the ethics of the servicemen, their sense of the hierarchy, their organization, their covering of the territory, and finally their allegiance to the political power by means of the Minister of Defence and the Head of State, who is also supreme Commander of the Armies. To tell the truth, the arguments of the Cena as those of the peripheral parties are not extravagant. They hold the road, in their ethical aspect as well as in their legal aspect: neutrality of the army and republican commitment are among the key principles of the democratic Revival. With the risk to be in ambiguity, these are thus rules that it is necessary to comply with.
So the two challengers, from the start, have good reasons to do so. But they have less and less good reasons for entering in an idiotic and Manichaean iron arm. It is necessary to mind the interest of the country before individual or partisan interests. And the interest of the country orders that virtue do not exceed right and right be not used as folding screen to embezzlements.
Under these conditions, why not divide the papaw in two? Both challengers - Government and Cena – accepting to put a little water in its sodabi. In the interest of our country, for the consolidation of democratic assets, the autonomy of the Cena recognized by the constitution must be respected. At the same time the neutrality of the army must be preserved: if one is used to invite his night watchman in the kitchen, one should not be surprised to see him put on the hat in full day!
The government asked for new cost proposals on the electoral equipment transportation. Here is an opening gesture which testifies to its acute sense of responsibility. The original cost being of 486.000.000 F CFA. According to the latest news, the Cena made an offer of 165.590.000 F, that is to say a fall of 66%! Here is a step in the good direction. One feels like saying cheer, Sirs continue the dialogue, you are on the good way, and the right cost is for soon!
The matter bears a cultural aspect: doesn't bargaining in the positive meaning of the word form part of our social and economic practices? Of course, provided one knows when to stop. Indeed, in lack of such a knowledge one is likely to rock towards the negative meaning of the word bargaining.
However democracy does not stand bargaining. It has a cost. And, most of all, it has a price: humility in the strict application of its rules.
Binason Avèkes
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