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OAS Electoral Mission Highlighted Security in October 2015 Local Elections in Colombia

The Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) of the Organization of American States (OAS) to the Colombian local elections on October 25, 2015 presented today a report to the Permanent Council in which it highlighted “the effective and timely work of the security forces, who through the Plan Democracia 2015 contributed decisively to the reduction of electoral violence, making the elections for local authorities one of the most secure in recent years.”

The report, presented by the Chief of Mission, former President of Guatemala Álvaro Colom, included recommendations such as the importance of creating the conditions to guarantee the secrecy of the vote, the need to create campaigns to increase the levels of participation, of adopting measures to fight practices such as vote buying and illegal voter migration, and the implementation of a permanent monitoring system of the electoral roll and mechanisms for the verification of identity card registration.

“Illegal voter migration and vote buying were the most recurrent topics in the elections of local authorities, both were practices seen in previous elections, which distort the popular will at the polls and work to undermine the strengthening of democracy,” explained former President Colom.

The report highlighted the efficient performance of the public security forces, “who controlled the isolated incidents of violence, ensured the normal development of the overall process, succeeded in capturing a significant number of people for alleged electoral offenses and the confiscation of financial and material resources related to the possible violations.” The report also recognized the role of local actors in strengthening the transparency and reliability of the process, the predominant participation of women as members of voting centers, auditors, and national observers, and the speed of the system of transmission of preliminary results.

On election day, the Mission deployed to 22 departments 40 international observers from 19 countries, who visited 115 municipalities. It was the thirteenth OAS electoral mission deployed in Colombia.

The National Registrar of Colombia, Juan Carlos Galindo, emphasized “the positive willingness of the Mission” and said that several of the recommendations made are already being taken on by the Registrar. “We are already working on initiatives to continue strengthening the electoral process, for example in the review of the electoral legislation to make it respond to the needs and challenges of the peace process in the country, and how to incorporate even more mechanisms of schematization and technology to provide security and guarantees of electoral processes to the Colombian society.” Juan Carlos Galindo also informed that Colombia is taking the firsts steps to achieve an international certification process in electoral management that the OAS promotes.

Reference: E-048/16