7 News Belize

OAS Reports on Elections Conduct and Irregularities
posted (March 8, 2012)
Yesterday while over 70% of the country's registered voters were out casting ballots a team of 22 OAS observers from 13 countries were watching.

They were present in all six districts, and visited over 85% of the country's polling areas.

They presented their initial report at a press conference today and here's what they had to say about some irregularities they noted:



Ambassador Frank Almaguer - Head of OAS Observer Team To Belize
"During the pre-electoral period, the mission heard concerns with regards to the voter's list stemming from the extension of the registration period, and alleged irregularities in the registration of newly naturalized citizens. The campaign period was also characterized a perception of limited differentiation between the state and the governing party in terms of resources. Agents from the two major parties maintained a presence at all of the polling stations observed by the mission. Nevertheless, the active role by party activists who congregated in significant numbers outside of many of the voting centers produced less than a conducive environment for the voting process. The electoral propaganda that was observed in the vicinity of the polling stations and the prevalence of T-Shirts bearing the candidate's name and symbols could be construed as electioneering. At one polling station, an OAS observer witnessed a party activists distributing money inside the polling center to a group of people who had just voted. With regards to the tabulation and processing of results, after the close of the polls, ballot boxes were transported to centralized counting offices, where the results were tabulated, and then relayed to the Elections and Boundaries Department. The incorporation of new procedures to have large polling areas serve as counting stations, and to simultaneously count multiple ballot boxes led to, what we think was, perhaps a more efficient counting procees, and may have prevented excessive delays. Nevertheless, the counting process went late into the night, and as we know - as far as we know - official results have not yet been - certainly have not disseminated as of midnight last night. And obviously, it's an area of interest, and we would be following in the course of the next few hours see how this resolves itself. But, democracy has its complications, but thank goodness for democracy. There is a chance for people to vote; there is a chance for those votes to be counted; and there is a chance for the various political groups to make sure that those votes are counted in a way that meets the test of fairness and objectivity. But obviously, the member states of the OAS will be very interested in seeing how this matter gets resolved in the course of the next hours, days, or however long it takes. And again, I'm only speaking from the fact that we can only go by what we hear in the media. It may well be, and in that case, we stand corrected, that some official information has been released. We are not aware of it at this point, but again, we were not at 100% of the counting places, and we assume that the returning officers, when they signed they papers, they were certifying that the process that was required took place. Again, we can't speak for 100% of the locations."

A more detailed verbal report on the observations and recommendations of the OAS Electoral Observation Mission will be presented to the OAS Permanent Council in Washington within the coming weeks.

The issue of campaign finance and other concerns surrounding the campaign process will be addressed in further detail in the mission's verbal report to the OAS Permanent Council.

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