OSCE/ODIHR opens mission to assess parliamentary elections in the Netherlands

WARSAW, 26 May 2010 - The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) today opened an election assessment mission for the early parliamentary elections to be held in the Netherlands on 9 June.

The mission's deployment follows an invitation from the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands. As a participating State of the OSCE, the Netherlands has committed to invite ODIHR to observe its elections.

The mission, led by Jonathan Stonestreet, comprises 12 international election experts from 10 OSCE participating States. The team will be based in The Hague but will deploy experts to other areas of the Netherlands.

The experts will assess and report on the overall framework for the conduct of the elections. They will focus on issues including the election legislation, the impact of the decision to end the use of electronic voting machines and campaign financing.

As part of the assessment process, the experts will meet relevant governmental authorities, election administration, candidates, political parties, the judiciary, civil society and the media.

ODIHR will not carry out systematic or comprehensive observation of the voting, counting, or tabulation on election day, but the experts plan to visit a limited number of polling stations across the country to follow election day procedures.

A final report will be issued about two months after the completion of the election process.
ODIHR also assessed the 2006 parliamentary elections in the Netherlands.