The European Union (EU) has deployed a 14-member team of long-term observers (LTO) to all ten administrative regions ahead of Guyana’s 2025 General and Regional Elections.
This team is part of the EU Election Observation Mission, led by European Parliamentarian from Poland, Robert Biedroń. Deputy Chief Observer Vania Angelova told reporters during a media briefing at the Pegasus Hotel on Wednesday that these persons are expected to work independently, be fact-based, and remain neutral.
“Our long-term observers will meet with the different stakeholders in the regions, they will meet with political parties and candidates, they will meet with the civil society, local media and they will make independent, neutral and fact-based assessments of the election prep and process in general,” Angelova said.
She added that the Mission looks forward to continued support from local stakeholders in ensuring transparency and credibility during the electoral process. These observers were briefed on the electoral process and have had meetings with the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the contesting political parties, and several other stakeholders. Angelova did not want to comment on the preliminary discussions with GECOM but she assured that the assessment and conclusion will be made available following the elections.
The LTOs make up a gender-balanced team from 14 countries and some of them will be deployed at more than one region.
“Our observers will cover all ten administrative regions; some of them will cover more than one region. They will travel on a daily basis to be able to cover the regions in which they are not actually based,” Angelova said.
Another 20 short-term observers will arrive closer to September 1, to support the observation of the voting, counting, and tabulation of results. However, the long-term observers will also remain in Guyana to observe post-election events in the regions.
A comprehensive final report, which will include recommendations for possible electoral reform, will be published and presented approximately two months after the conclusion of the process.
This is the second time a full-fledged observation mission has been deployed to Guyana and has the mandate of assessing the elections. In 2020, an EU observation mission made 26 recommendations for improving national elections. Two of the 26 recommendations were fully implemented.
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