Commonwealth Team to observe St Kitts and Nevis General Election
21 January 2010
A Commonwealth Expert Team (CET) will be present during the General Election to be held in St Kitts and Nevis on 25 January 2010.
The Team was constituted by Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma at the invitation of the Government of St Kitts and Nevis. The CET will be led by Chris Carter MP, former Minister and currently Opposition Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, New Zealand.
“The Commonwealth has supported the democratic process over the last several years in St Kitts and Nevis and is pleased to continue to do so through the work of the Expert Team,” the Secretary-General said. “We hope our Team can contribute to a peaceful and lawful election process, and provide useful recommendations regarding the ongoing questions of electoral reform facing the country.”
The Group’s mandate is to “to assess the overall conduct of the electoral process and the environment in which the election is conducted, according to the standards for democratic elections to which the country has committed itself ... its function is not to supervise but to observe and assess the process as a whole and to form a judgement accordingly. It would also be free to propose to the authorities concerned such action on institutional, procedural and other matters as would assist the holding of such elections.”
Note to Editors
For media enquiries, please contact Shennia Spillane on +44 7921 409543 / +1 869 668 8759 or via email at s.spillane@commonwealth.int
The Team will act impartially and independently and shall conduct itself according to the standards expressed in the International Declaration of Principles for Election Observation to which the Commonwealth is a signatory.
The Group’s report will be submitted to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, who will in turn send it to the Government of St Kitts and Nevis, the electoral authorities, political parties, and eventually to all Commonwealth governments.
The Commonwealth Expert Team comprises three persons:
Chris Carter MP (Team Leader)
Former Minister; Opposition Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs, New Zealand
Krishnan Srinivasan
Former Foreign Secretary and former Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General, India
Lorna Simon
Supervisor of Elections, Antigua and Barbuda
The team will arrive in Basseterre by 21 January 2010 and stay until 30 January 2010. It will be assisted by a support team of two staff from the Commonwealth Secretariat.
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