Election observation missions
Genuine elections are an essential basis for sustainable development and a functioning democracy. The European Union believes that actions supporting the right to participate in genuine elections can make a major contribution to peace, security and conflict prevention. Support takes the form of electoral assistance projects and EU election observation missions.
What's On
Request for candidatures for EU Electoral Observation Mission to Senegal
Observation Data Analyst Training 23-27 January 2012 - BRUSSELS. Deadline for application: 14 December 2011. Spontaneous applications will be encouraged.
New website of the EOMs
New version of the EU EOM election handbook is available
A story from the field: Observing elections in Pakistan
The political development of Pakistan is crucial to stability in Asia, Central Asia and South East Asia. With this in mind, the EU decided to deploy an election observation mission to the National and Provincial Assembly Elections, which were held on 18 February 2008.
EU mission members arrived in Pakistan on 9 December 2007, following an invitation from the Pakistani authorities. The EU election observation missions (EU EOM) was led by Michael Gahler, member of the European Parliament. On election day, the mission had 131 observers from 23 EU Member States, Norway and Canada, who visited 445 polling stations in 115 constituencies to observe voting, counting and the compilation of results.
The final report of the EU election observation mission concluded that: "...the 18 February 2008 National and Provincial Assembly Elections saw a pluralistic process in which a broad range of views were expressed, an election that was competitive and a polling process which achieved increased public confidence in comparison to previous elections. A more significant role was played in these elections by the media and civil society, including by providing greater scrutiny of the process.
However, there were serious problems with the framework and conditions in which the elections were held and a level playing field was not provided during the campaign, primarily as a result of abuse of state resources and bias in the state media in favour of the former ruling parties.
As a result, the overall process fell short of a number of international standards for genuine democratic elections.
See more details about the EU’s electoral mission to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.