Abidjan, 03 July 2008 ...The Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Côte d'Ivoire, Y.J.Choi, on Friday handed over an audit of the country's electoral map to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

Mr Choi explained at a ceremony held at the IEC headquarters in Abidjan that the audit, which involved checking the polling stations, was a useful, basic preliminary operation in this phase of the general identification of the population.

The UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) conducted the exercise, which entailed evaluating the situation of each polling area and making recommendations for an electoral map that guarantees the elections in accordance with the standards accepted by Ivorians themselves.

Under this nation-wide exercise, which was done on the basis of the 2000 electoral map, almost all of the 10,463 polling stations were assessed, Mr. Choi stated. He said UNOCI had noted that there were over 2,000 polling stations in village chiefs' homes, places of worship and prisons, while almost 200 were difficult to reach or totally inaccessible.

Receiving the documents from the head of the UN mission, IEC Deputy Chairman Jean-Baptiste Gomis gave the assurance that appropriate measures would be taken to ensure that polling areas conform to the Ivorian electoral code. Speaking on behalf of the IEC's chairman, currently on mission outside Abidjan, Mr Gomis announced the imminent launch of the identification operation, which will benefit greatly from the audit of the electoral map done by UNOCI.