May 24, 2022
The Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) of the Organization of American States (OAS) for the presidential elections of May 29 in Colombia began its activities in the country today.
The Chief of Mission will be the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay, Eladio Loizaga, who also headed the Mission deployed in March for the legislative elections in the country, and the Electoral Observation Mission for the Extraordinary Congressional Elections of Peru in 2020. Loizaga will be present at the beginning of next week.
Composed of 87 specialists and observers, the Mission will have a wide territorial deployment in different departments of the country. Likewise, it will monitor key aspects of the process, such as electoral organization and voting abroad, electoral technology, electoral justice, campaigns and freedom of expression, and electoral violence.
The Mission began to arrive in the national territory in a staggered manner on Monday, and today and tomorrow it will observe the mock vote count and the training of polling station staffers by the National Registry of Civil Status (RNEC). Over the next few days, the members of the OAS Mission will meet with electoral and government authorities, political leaders, and representatives of civil society and the accredited diplomatic community in Colombia, which will allow them to make a comprehensive assessment of the process.
After the elections, the Mission will present a preliminary report with its observations and recommendations to contribute to the strengthening of the electoral processes in Colombia. This is the twenty-first time that the OAS has deployed a Mission to observe electoral processes in Colombia.