Former US President Jimmy Carter who played a pivotal role in spurring electoral reforms that led to free and fair elections in 1992 will be heading the Carter Center observer team to next month’s general elections.
The announcement was made today by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center. The Center had not mounted observer missions to the 2006 and 2011 elections. Calls were made by the private sector here and others for the Center to mount a mission.
The Carter Center press release issued today follows:
GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — The Carter Center has launched an international election observation mission for Guyana’s May 11 elections at the invitation of the government of Guyana.
The core team of experts will be joined this week by six medium-term observers, together representing nine countries. The Center’s observers will meet regularly with representatives of the Guyana Elections Commission, political party candidates, civil society organizations, the international community, and citizen election observers to assess electoral preparations and the pre-electoral environment, including election administration, campaigning, voter education, and other issues.
They will be joined by a larger delegation of election observers in May, led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who will assess the voting, counting, and tabulation processes.
“I look forward to leading our delegation to observe Guyana’s elections on May 11,” said President Carter. “The Carter Center has a long history in Guyana and great respect for the Guyanese people. These will be the fourth elections we have observed there since 1992, and we trust they will be peaceful and inspire hope for the future.”
With the Guyana mission, The Carter Center reaches an important milestone: its 100th election observation. The first took place in Panama in 1989 during a hotly contested race that the Center declared fraudulent. Since then, the Center has observed elections in 38 countries.
The Carter Center’s election observation mission is conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation and Code of Conduct that was commemorated at the United Nations in 2005 and has been endorsed by 49 election observation groups. The Center assesses the electoral process based on Guyana’s national legal framework and its obligations for democratic elections contained in regional and international agreements.
