the hope not only of seeing a genuine multiparty democracy on ground, but putting an end to all the forms of masquerading and electoral malpractices. The transfer of power to sanction to these bodies appears to many political stakeholders and observers as the only means of improving electoral transparency, knowing that the organs of the state, be they administrative or judicial, are often seen as either'at the service' of the power or as not being endowed in terms of laws or deeds, attributes which tend to preserve the pressures put on them. In these conditions, it is expected of the established electoral commissions that they ensure directly the sanctioning of infringements of electoral laws or at least to report promptly to the appropriate sanctioning authority, which is often the judiciary. In fact, the issue of sanctioning infringements to electoral law aims at two different situations. Sanctions may first concern the electoral results. If some irregularities have been committed, the election should just be invalid: in what way can the commission come in, does it actually have a power to invalidate elections or parts of it? The second case concerns the suing the persons suspected to have orchestrated the irregularities. The punishment envisaged, at this stage, no longer has anything to do with the electoral results, but the individual held to be responsible for them. It is therefore more of a penal offence. Most of the time and for reasons easily understandable, this second aspect of the punishment is entrusted to the care of the law court, and is out of the scope of the electoral commission. The latter has never, as a matter of principle, had the power to inflict any freedom-depriving punishment or sanctions. Only judges can exercise such justice on behalf of the state. In other words, one can only expect interventions of the electoral commission on the first aspect of the repression, i.e. total or partial invalidation of the election results. 59