Memorandums addressed to the Supreme
Electoral Council in Nicaragua

16 de julio de 2004

The Lima Agreement is a Continental Network for the Promotion and Advocacy of Democracy, comprised of Organizations from 16 countries of the Americas, the majority of which have proven experience as domestic electoral observers. Collectively, we have observed more than 50 electoral processes in the entire continent.

Our attention has been called to a draft of the Electoral Observation Regulations that your institution is considering for this year’s observation of the Nicaraguan Municipal Elections. Our group is somewhat concerned about this draft and has several issues and considerations that we deliver to you.

Article 10, paragraph F of said draft mentions that domestic observers must have, for their accreditation, a certificate showing a clean criminal record. From the same document and the Electoral Law in your country, we understand that only domestic observers are required to present such certificate, not the international observers nor other people at the polling stations. To our belief, this is unfairly discriminatory. We can affirm that none of the regulations concerning observers in our countries has a similar provision.

Article 16 of said draft also mentions that domestic observers shall pay private entities for their accreditation, specifically for the badge, but it does not state the amount to be paid. It is worthwhile mentioning that this provision will inevitably exclude from the Electoral Observation the poorest sectors of your country and will impair the important work and contribution provided by the domestic electoral observers to the quality and legitimacy of the electoral processes. We can also mention that, although our countries share the different challenges and problems in handling elections, none of them has established a regulation with such negative consequences.

Article 22, paragraph g, indicates that the observers shall have to obtain prior authorized consent to take pictures of the voting process. In our humble opinion, this restriction to freedom of information can affect the quality of the observation process and does not seem to respond to any need or concrete problem, based on the experience of our countries.

Given that the above mentioned document seems to be open still for consideration, we send you this letter hoping that our contribution will be useful for you, for your country, and for your electoral processes.

Yours faithfully,

Percy Medina
Transparencia
Technical Secretariat of the Lima Agreement

Isaura Bono
Movimiento Ciudadano por la Democracia
Mexico

Stellamaris Cacace
Decidamos
Paraguay

Carlos March - Laura Alonso
Poder Ciudadano
Argentina

Silvia Alonso
Alianza Cívica
Mexico

Lloyd Barnett
Citizens Actions for Free and Fair Elections
Jamaica

Nelson Socha
Viva la Ciudadania
Colombia

Anunziatta Valdés – Juanita Bersosa
Participacion Ciudadana
Ecuador

Maribel Jaén
Justicia y Paz
Panama

José Ceballos
Participación Ciudadana
Dominican Republic

Silvana Lauzán
Participa
Chile

Luis Felipe Alam y Alam
Cocívica
El Salvador

Manfredo Marroquín
Acción Ciudadana
Guatemala

Leopoldo Berlanger
Consejo Nacional de Observación
Haiti

Cc. European Parliament.