COPENHAGEN, 18 September 2015 – OSCE parliamentarians will observe the upcoming parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan and provide leadership for the OSCE's short-term observer mission.
OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ivica Dacic has designated Christine Muttonen (MP, Austria) as Special Co-ordinator to lead the OSCE’s short-term observers for the 4 October vote. Ivana Dobesova (MP, Czech Republic) will serve as Head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Delegation, which will include 31 MPs from 16 OSCE participating States.
“The upcoming parliamentary elections will be another important test for democracy in Kyrgyzstan. My observers and I look forward to seeing how new procedures, such as biometric voter-identification, will work in practice, and whether they can help maintain the integrity of the electoral process. Improving elections would further consolidate the democracy that Kyrgyzstan’s people have fought for,” Muttonen said.
OSCE parliamentary observers will deploy to polling stations across Kyrgyzstan, working closely with long-term observers from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) and in co-ordination with colleagues from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the European Parliament (EP).
The mission will assess the elections against democratic commitments contained in the OSCE’s 1990 Copenhagen Document.
Special Co-ordinator Muttonen serves as a Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and as Deputy Head of the Austrian Delegation to the Assembly. She has participated in election observation missions to Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States and served as OSCE Special Co-ordinator for last year’s observation mission to parliamentary elections in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Ivana Dobesova, who will lead the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Delegation of observers, is the Vice-Chair of the Assembly’s Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions. She also serves as Head of the Czech Delegation to the Assembly. Dobesova has participated in election observation missions to Hungary, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has observed parliamentary votes in Kyrgyzstan in 2000, 2005, 2007 and 2010, as well as presidential votes in 2005, 2009 and 2011.
Since 1993, more than 5,000 OSCE parliamentarians and staff have observed nearly 150 elections in more than 30 countries.
For more information about the OSCE PA's election monitoring work, click here.
