ABIDJAN, (Xinhua) — Cote d’Ivoire’s electoral process is going through turmoil due to the political-judicial battle over voter registration contentions linked to the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI).

The suspected fraud on the voter list has caused commotion within the body charged with the duty to organize elections to end years of instability in the West African country.

“There is a little bit of unrest in the air,” Prime Minister Guillaume Soro said on Friday during his visit to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, where he was expected to brief President Blaise Compaore on the situation in Cote d’lvoire. Compaore was named the facilitator in the Cote d’Ivoire crisis late last year by the 15-member West African bloc ECOWAS with a mandate to bring the rival parties to a presidential vote set for late February and early March.

With Compaore’s mediation, Soro, who is also the leader of the former rebel New Forces (FN), had signed four peace accords with Cote d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo in Ouagadougou before being named the official facilitator. Cote d’Ivoire’s civil society organizations have also expressed their fear about the pre-election climate which has become deleterious.

“CEI has found itself in the middle of a fight between the opposition and the ruling party. This will not help matters to proceed. Everything must come to an end. It’s a must therefore, that we end this crisis so that we can take the route to elections, ” said Francois Kouma, the secretary general of the New Coalition of Cote d’lvoire’s civil society. On her part, President of the Hearts of Peace Organization Laurence Kone said it is urgent to settle this crisis which is blocking the electoral process.

“The facilitator and the UN should make firm recommendations and take appropriate decisions. Already there are some disagreements. We must place first things first so that we can avoid the eventuality of the worst happening,” Kone said.

“The UN had wished that the presidential elections are organized between now and June but with this kind of controversy, where are we headed? The new deadline risks being compromised,” she noted. The scandal broke out in January after the public hearing and voter identification and other steps to make the voter list a satisfactory one.

The presidential camp accused CEI President Beugre Mambe of having attempted to fraudulently register 429,000 people on the final list, demanding his resignation. The latter denied the charges. According to a communique published on Friday, at the end of the investigation ordered by the interior minister, the justice system found him guilty of the fraud.

On Saturday, Mambe once again denied wrongdoing at a press briefing held at home, vowing to remain at his post to accomplish the mission. Meanwhile, confrontations broke out between the security forces and opposition protesters in the towns of Katiola (north), Divo (central-west) and Man (west) over the electoral contentions.

The opposition supporters vigorously protested the ruling party for using the judicial system to “arbitrarily” remove the names of the opponents from the electoral list. Although calm has returned by far, observers fear the situation is still precarious given the fact that the country’s electoral process has always been dogged by controversy.

Cote d’Ivoire has seen repeated postponements of the election since 2005, when Gbagbo’s tenure expired. The country last put off the planned polls from November 2009 to late February or early March. In anticipation of possible twists and turns in the process, the UN peacekeeping mission has expressed hope that the polls will take place in the first half of the year.

Cote d’Ivoire remains divided with the government controlling the south and the FN holding the north, despite Soro’s appointment as prime minister under the peace accords. The crisis was triggered by an attempted coup against Gbagbo in 2002 and an ensuing civil war.