The European Commission announced Thursday it would deploy an EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) to El Salvador to observe the Jan. 18 legislative elections and the March 15 presidential elections of the country next year, following invitations from the Salvadoran electoral authorities.
This will be the first time that an EU EOM will be sent to El Salvador, with the mission to be led by Luis Yanez-Barnuevo Garcia, a Spanish member of the European Parliament.
European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero- Waldner said Thursday the EU is "confident the presence of the EU EOM throughout the country covering the whole electoral process will contribute to enhance transparency and public confidence" in El Salvador.
"At the same time, this initiative is a renewed sign of the EU commitment toward stability and development in Central America, as also shown by the negotiation process for a bi-regional Association Agreement and the significant contributions in development cooperation to the region and specifically to El Salvador," she added.
The EU EOM core team will consist of the chief observer and seven experts who will arrive during the third week of December. The EOM core team will accompany the whole process, till the official proclamation of results of the presidential elections.
The EU EOM will be completed, on the occasion of the legislative elections, by 22 long-term observers, who will be deployed throughout the country to follow the campaign period and pre-election preparations, as well as election day and the post- election period. Some members of the European Parliament will join the EU EOM around election day.
For the presidential elections, the EU EOM will have, in addition to the core team and the 22 long-term observers, 40 short- term observers, together with some members of the European Parliament, to observe voting, counting and the tabulation of results. If a second round of the presidential election is required on April 19, the EU EOM will remain in the country until this has been completed.
According to the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, EU election observation missions are independent and professional, and for this reason their findings are widely seen as credible and trustworthy.
The EU is allocating 3.7 million euros (about 5.2 million U.S. dollars) to meet the costs of deploying this mission.
|
About Us 
