Portugal early parliamentary elections 2022: ODIHR election expert team final report

The bodies in charge of administering the 30 January 2022 early parliamentary elections in Portugal enjoyed a high level of confidence among all electoral stakeholders and effectively organized the early elections. The campaign was competitive, allowed voters to make an informed choice and all candidates were able to campaign freely. At the same time, certain aspects of the electoral process, including campaign finance reporting and oversight and the participation of persons with disabilities, would benefit from further review.

These are the main conclusions from the final report on the elections, published today by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The report offers 12 recommendations to improve the conduct of elections and to increase transparency and public confidence in the electoral process.

Key recommendations include:

• Increasing transparency by opening election administration sessions to the public;

• Providing standard uniform training for all lower-level commission members in advance of the elections;
• Removing restrictions on electoral rights based on intellectual or psychosocial disability in line with international standards and considering additional measures to ensure that voters with disabilities can vote independently and have access to campaign materials;
• Further promoting the participation of women in the electoral process as candidates and election officials by ensuring the uniform implementation of the gender quota and collecting and publishing disaggregated data on gender representation in the election administration;
• Introducing interim campaign finance reporting prior to election day;
• Granting institutional and financial autonomy to the campaign finance oversight body.

ODIHR deployed an Election Expert Team for these elections on 16 January 2022. All 57 countries across the OSCE region have formally committed to follow up promptly on ODIHR’s election assessments and recommendations.