A Commonwealth Observer Group (COG) arrived in Castries, Saint Lucia for the general elections scheduled for this Monday, July 26, 2021.
The team arrived last Thursday and Friday and will be deployed to polling stations across the country to observe pre-poll preparations, voting day and result counting processes.
In an arrival statement, the Chair of the COG and former Speaker of the House of Assembly of the Bahamas, Alvin Smith, said: “We recognise that these elections are taking place in a challenging environment when the world is confronted with a global pandemic.
“The group will consider the pre-election environment and election preparations. It will observe the organisation and conduct of the election process as a whole, including deploying observers to various regions of the country on Election Day.
The group will observe the voting, vote-counting and results procedures. The Group’s mandate is to assess whether the elections have been conducted according to the national, regional, Commonwealth and international standards to which Saint Lucia has committed itself. Where appropriate, the group can also make recommendations for the future strengthening of the electoral framework.”
The COG will issue an Interim Statement of its preliminary findings on July 28 before departing Saint Lucia on 30 July.
The Commonwealth Observer Group members are:
- Alvin Smith – Former Speaker of the House of Assembly and Member of Parliament, The Bahamas.
- Baroness Denise Kingsmill – Member of House of Lords, United Kingdom.
- Ian Hughes – Electoral official at the Electoral Commission of Antigua and Barbuda;
- Orette Fisher – Former Commissioner/Director of Elections, at the Electoral Commission, Jamaica; and
- Dr Tres-Ann Kremer – Director of the Institute of Criminal Justice and Security, University of the West Indies, Jamaica. (PR)
