During the Council session, held at OAS headquarters, the Organization’s Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, remarked that “the electoral process in all of our countries is increasingly more normal and increasingly more transparent,” making special reference to the elections in Peru and Ecuador, and added that the OAS is “very proud to be a part of this process, in which more and more people want to participate.”
According to the report, the EOM that followed the second round of general elections in Peru was composed of 73 observers, 21 from Member States and 7 from Observer States, deployed throughout the Peruvian territory. The report indicates that the observation work was based on a sample designed to collect significant data about voter behavior.
In his presentation, the Chief of Mission, Ambassador Dante Caputo, asserted that “it is very difficult to write the account of this second round because things went very well in Peru,” while highlighting the normalcy of the conditions during the elections. “I cannot tell you about any incidents or violent acts or abnormalities because, simply, they did not happen,” he said, concluding that “electoral democracy is evolving and Peru is a good example of what Latin America is doing in this field.”
… DECO Director Pablo Gutiérrez, on behalf of the Chief of Mission and special envoy of the Secretary General, Enrique Correa, presented the report on the referendum and popular vote conducted in Ecuador on May 7th.
During his presentation, Gutiérrez noted the high level of participation by the citizenry, “which reached more than 77 percent,” the significant improvements in the administration of the electoral process, and the work conducted by the National Electoral Council ( CNE ) “in the logistics management of the election, the transparent and adequate publication of the results of the quick count, and the complete reengineering of the information technologies that support the counting process.”
In his conclusions, Gutiérrez presented a series of recommendations for the Ecuadorian authorities, including: to strengthen the mechanisms for supervising advertising and campaign expenses; to ensure access by the political delegates to the electoral process; to rethink the design of the vote counting process and marking of the ballots; to strengthen the training of members of vote tallying boards; and to emphasize planning.
Full Article: Observation Missions in Peru and Ecuador Extolled Efficiency and Progress in Electoral Processes | webnewswire.com.
