February 13th, 2015 -- The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) today received the report of the Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) to the general elections of October 12, 2014 in Bolivia, presented by the Chief of Mission, the former President of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, who suggested a series of measures for the improvement of the electoral system in the South American country.
In his report, the Chief of Mission designated by the Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza, highlighted the high voter turnout during the elections, which reached more than 89% of registered voters, as well as the participation of indigenous candidates for the special districts. In addition, the former Guatemalan President hailed “the largest opening in the electoral history of Bolivia for the exercise of the political rights of citizens living abroad, which allowed 168,526 Bolivians in 33 countries to vote. This measure contributes to generating greater inclusion of all the citizens of the Plurinational State of Bolivia in its democratic process.”
After presenting an account of the previous activities of the Mission and the atmosphere prior to Election Day, Alvaro Colom presented the suggestions of the specialists to strengthen the electoral system of the South American country, among which he reiterated the need for training of election officials, as was also noted in EOMs in 2009 and 2011.
In this regard, the Chief of Mission said that "there are no national, standardized and unified guidelines on the training of election officials, specifically electoral juries and notaries, which hinders the proper performance of their functions," and added that the shortage of electoral notaries in different polling centers makes it difficult to give a timely response to citizens’ concerns. For this reason, Colom said that "electoral training plans need to be strengthened, the creation of national standards in relation to the preparation of electoral officials who have responsibilities in elections should be considered and an increase in the number of electoral notaries should be studied in order to have at least one officer assigned to each precinct."
Among his proposals, he also advised the review and updating of the electoral roll, so as to contribute to building greater trust in it, which, in any case, "was not a determining issue for the Mission. The number of anomalies in the census does not differ greatly from most lists of voters in the region," said the former Guatemalan President.
Another issue of interest contained in the report was the problems in the system of tabulation and transmission of results which, according to the specialists, put at risk the quality, timeliness and transparency of their publication. In this regard, the Mission recommended with emphasis that "the TSE implement a Preliminary Results Transmission System, as a tool to build confidence and reassurance among the public, as well as political and social actors."
The Mission also made suggestions on matters of electoral justice, public funding for political parties and electoral campaigns and control of campaign spending, access to the media and definition of advertising, conditions for political participation of women, preparation of the electoral calendar and the custody of election materials.
Former President Colom expressed his gratitude for the cooperation of the Bolivian authorities with the 62 international observers from the EOM, including experts on the issues of electoral organization and technology, campaign finance, equal participation of women and men in the election, media analysis, electoral security, electoral dispute resolution and the vote abroad.
After presenting the report, the Bolivian Permanent Representative to the OAS, Ambassador Diego Pary, thanked the members of the Mission for their work and that of the regional body. " Bolivia highlights the role of the Electoral Observation Missions of the OAS and other regional organizations, which contribute to the improvement of elections," said the diplomat.
Regarding the outcome of the document, the Bolivian representative said that " The report presented recognizes the transparency and impartiality of the process. Of course, as in all elections there are some flaws on which the Supreme Electoral Tribunal is working, with the support of the OAS."
For his part, the OAS Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza, also thanked the Observer Mission headed by former President Colom and added that “we are also grateful to the people of Bolivia who have sent us a remarkable statement of their affection for democracy, by voting in numbers almost unprecedented in any country of our region."
Subsequently, the Permanent Council adopted a resolution authorizing the Secretary General Insulza to send invitations to participate in the forty-ninth Special Meeting of the General Assembly convened on March 18 to elect the next OAS Secretary General and Assistant Secretary General. The guest list includes 450 organizations registered in the OAS Registry of Civil Society Organizations, as well as governmental entities and Inter-American regional or subregional, and specialized agencies related to the United Nations and other international organizations.
Also during today's meeting, following a proposal from the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the OAS, the Council received the Mayor of the city of Pachuca, Eleazar Garcia, who presented to the representatives of the member countries details of the Third International Seminar on Innovation and Effective Public Management, to be held in Pachuca, Hidalgo, Mexico, on March 5 and 6, 2015. Mayor Garcia said the aim of the seminar "is to create a forum for member nations of the OAS to share their successful experiences and views on the creation of public efforts to strengthen democracy through the implementation of technological tools."
For his part, Secretary General Insulza invited Council members to attend the event because " effective governance is one of the newest programs of the Organization," and is "one of the best contributions we can make to the development of democracy in our countries." The seminar is jointly organized by the Department for Effective Public Management and the city of Pachuca, and during the event the Second Edition of the Inter-American Prize for Innovation in Effective Public Management 2014 will be presented and the second meeting will be held high authorities of the Inter-American Cooperation Mechanism for Effective Public Management (MECIGE).
During the meeting of the Permanent Council, the representatives of Venezuela, Suriname, Canada, Peru, Ecuador, the United States, Paraguay, Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Dominica took the floor. The Permanent Observer of France also took the floor.
A gallery of photos of the event is available here.
The full video of the event will be available here.
The audio of the event will be available here.
For more information, please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.
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