– for upcoming elections
THE Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) will be sending an observer mission here for the Regional and General Elections due before year end. This announcement was made on Wednesday following a meeting of UNASUR Foreign Ministers in Buenos Aires, Argentina where the ministers decided to establish an Electoral Council, which will aim to send election observation missions to countries within the bloc.

The announcement was made by Chancellor of UNASUR Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett who is also the Foreign Minister of Guyana, the country that holds the pro-tempore presidency of the bloc.
“We have accepted the proposal of the electoral bodies of the countries of UNASUR to create an electoral council block,” Minister Rodrigues told a news conference.

She  added that South American foreign ministers agreed to create a working group to analyze the nature, structure and functioning of the Electoral Council and the criteria and standards for the conduct of electoral missions.

UNASUR’s Secretary General, Maria Emma Mejia, said the bloc has received requests for electoral missions.

She said that, apart from Guyana, the Bloc will also observe the election of judicial authorities in Bolivia in October and a referendum on the voting abroad will be held in November in Paraguay.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro said the Electoral Council will strengthen the South American integration and will “further progress towards more developed democracies.”

This decision was adopted by UNASUR during an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers attending the Tenth Meeting of Foreign Ministers of the Forum on Cooperation between Latin America and East Asia.

The UNASUR constituent treaty which came into force in March, consists of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.