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Last Updated: Dec 29, 2011 - 2:18:31 AM |
 During
a recent meeting of the Group of Friends of Haiti, the Assistant
Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS),
Albert R. Ramdin, informed that the hemispheric organization and the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will send a joint Electoral
Observation Mission to Haiti in preparation for the legislative and
presidential elections of November 28.
The Mission will be
integrated by more than 150 people to be deployed throughout the
Caribbean nation, and would be charged with following the electoral
process in the months before the elections as well as the voting on
Election Day. It is hoped that a core group of people will arrive in
Haiti at the beginning of August.
Ambassador Ramdin said this
is the first time the OAS and CARICOM have partnered together to
provide electoral observation assistance, explaining that this new
collaboration will allow them to be more effective.
“We
believe that if a country is in need of help, whether it’s
political, economic or social, or whether it is in need of technical
assistance, we need to work together with the subregional
integration entity or cooperation entity, in this case CARICOM,” he
said, adding that preparations for the November elections are moving
ahead efficiently. “From a technical perspective, preparations for
the elections are well on target, they are on schedule,” he
explained. “So if everything goes well in terms of technical
preparation we believe we can have free, fair and credible
elections.”
Highlighting the importance of timely elections
in Haiti, Ramdin added that successful elections could speed up the
reconstruction process of the country. “If we have elections at the
end of the year, we may have a much better situation by February
next year to intensify the process of social and economic
reconstruction, and work towards sustainable development,” he
added.
Legislative elections in the Caribbean country were
postponed after the January 12 earthquake. Since then, the OAS has
been and will continue to be involved in various aspects of the
Haitian electoral process, including: the registration of new
voters, whose addresses changed after the earthquake; providing
technical assistance to the country’s Provisional Electoral Council
(CEP); and providing technical expertise and equipment for the
establishment of tabulation centers.
For more information,
please visit the OAS Website at www.oas.org.
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