Cote d'Ivoire's Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) has once again vowed to end the identification operation by the end of the month to ensure an early holding of the long-delayed presidential election in 2009.
"The end of the operation is fixed on Feb. 28, 2009 at 17:00 local time (1700 GMT)," according to a CEI statement released on Monday.
The divided West African country has obviously sped up the process with time running out before the deadline, with more than 4.6 million people having accounted for in the identification operation.
A total of 12 million nationals have to be identified, including 9 million voters.
The operation, which was launched on Sept. 15, was stalled amid differences between the government-controlled south and the former New Forces (FN)-held north. It was also suspended several times as a result of strikes by censors demanding the payment of wage arrears.
The slow process led to another postponement of the Nov. 30 election, which has to be rearranged again for sometime after the completion of voter identification and registration.
The polls have never taken place since 2005, at the end of a civil war splitting the leading cocoa and diamond exporter in West Africa after a botched coup attempt by the FN in 2002.
While the 8,000-strong United Nations Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI) still worries about the progress, there are unprecedented signs for optimism.
One of them comes from the financial support by the international community, which has offered 8 billion FCFA (16 million U.S. dollars) for the budget of the historic election.
Last month, the CEI voiced confidence in the payment of all arrears with the backing of enormous financial support from the government.
Up to 6.4 billion FCFA (12.8 million U.S. dollars) were owed to the strikers because of inadequate funds.
A breakthrough was made in December in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, the host country of talks to end the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire, when the government and the FN signed a key agreement to knock out the main obstacle of army reunification.
Under the peace accord, the fourth since President Laurent Gbagbo and FN leader Guillaume Soro signed their first in March 2007, 5,000 ex-combatants of the former rebel will be integrated into a unified national army of defense, alongside the administrative and judicial reunification.
Soro, who was named prime minister by President Gbagbo under the peace deal in March 2007, said on Monday that the redeployment of judicial administration had made progress on the ground and that the pre-election census could be finished by Feb. 28.
On the same day, the Committee of Evaluation and Accompaniment (CEA), a mediation agency for Cote d'Ivoire held its sixth session in Ouagadougou to encourage the on-going process, while urging the CEI to produce a realistic timetable for the upcoming election.
A concrete roadmap was proposed by ONUCI last week, which said at least five steps must be included in the arrangements: the publication of a provisional and definitive schedule, the availability of voter and identification cards, distribution of those cards, election campaign and the presidential vote.
"Without goal, without date, without periods, one cannot support as one ought to in aid to the process," ONUCI warned in a statement.
With the situation largely improved throughout Cote d'Ivoire, the UN Security Council has decided to reduce the UNOCI mission from 8,115 peacekeepers to 7,450. France also plans to recall home 1,100 of the 2,000 troops stationed in Cote d'Ivoire.