No OSCE observers at the Serbian presidential elections
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe will not have observers at the election polls during the presidential elections in Serbia.
Presidential elections will be monitored only by a limited mission of the OSCE without observers at the election polls, since there is not enough time to prepare a full scale mission, said the OSCE/ODIHR spokesperson Thomas Rymer on Wednesday.
Rymer said that the OSCE sent the Election Assessment Mission to Serbia on Tuesday to also monitor special aspects of the election process, legal framework, and media coverage of the presidential campaigns.
“However, there will be no comprehensive monitoring in the field, especially not at the polls”, said Rymer. He added that, under normal circumstances, OSCE would recommend a monitoring mission made of the long and short term observers.
He explained that the long term observers would come to Serbia at least a month or six weeks before the elections, while the short term observers would come to the country one week before the voting. Their duty would be to monitor the voting process, opening and closing of the voting polls, and counting of ballots.
“The difficulty in this case is that, due to a lack of time, it is not possible to prepare a full scale mission. Therefore, we are sending only the election assessment mission”, he said.
Part of the Election Assessment Mission’s duties is to determine whether the recommendations from the OSCE’s last year report have been fulfilled by the Serbian authorities.
Source: Beta