International observers monitor auto polls in 5 places

SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines – Foreign observers, led by a member of the Dutch parliament, are monitoring the country’s first automated polls in this province as well as in four other places in the country today.

A total of 27 foreigners from the Compact for Peaceful and Democratic Elections-International Observers Mission (Compact-IOM) are now in this province, Nueva Ecija, Maguindanao, Negros and Pasig City.

Compact-IOM secretariat officer Arnold Tarrobago said five of the international delegates, including Paul Lempens, a member of parliament of the Dutch Socialist Party, are monitoring the elections in Pampanga.

Tarrobago said their observations and recommendations on the elections will be submitted to the United Nations, the members of the diplomatic corps, the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the Philippine Congress, and different civil society groups in the Philippines and other countries.

“The (foreign) delegates are spending on their own in fulfilling their mission for free and clean elections in our country, but the local secretariat will take care of the press conferences and other meetings,” Tarrobago told The STAR.

Tarrobago said the five areas were chosen by the Compact-IOM secretariat and convenors based on their history of political conflict, electoral contests and different facets of automation, among other factors.

Lempens’ group is slated to interview local candidates to get their inputs on the polls.  

The other members of the team assigned to Pampanga are Erna Andriyani, an officer of the youth wing of Indonesia’s Partai Perserikatan Rakyat (People’s Union Party); Hannah Horeis, a member of the Philippinenburo, an information and solidarity center of Germany’s Asia House; David Marshel Pakinathan, an officer of the youth wing of the Democratic Action Party of Malaysia; and Jim Heddle, a democratic elections advocate and independent US filmmaker based in San Francisco who will record the team’s activities on video.

Lempens’ group arrived yesterday morning at the Archdiocesan Social Action Center of Pampanga here and immediately buckled down to work by meeting with local Comelec, police and Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting officials.

Tarrobago said the foreign observers will go to key Pampanga towns and cities today to monitor the balloting and will stay in the province until tomorrow to observe the provincial canvassing.

He said all 27 foreign observers will gather on May 12 and pool their assessment of the automated elections.