IRI Conducts Country-Wide Political Party Poll Watcher Trainings

April 23, 2004

The IRI staff in Mongolia is in the midst of a country-wide party agent poll-watcher training tour throughout the vast area of Mongolia. IRI has trained in the aimags of Bulgan, Erdenet, Sukhbaatar, Darkhan, Omnogov and will conduct training in the remaining 21 aimags by June 15 (the election is June 27). Two non-partisan university professors are training the party agents with a curriculum based on the Mongolian Election Law and international standards for poll-watching. Additionally, IRI is distributing manuals to the party agents to use throughout the training and to use as a reference on the Election Day. IRI will train both the Motherland-Democracy Coalition and the ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) party. According to Resident Program Director John Poepsel, Mongolia’s General Election Committee, which is the country’s official election entity, has requested an additional 1,800 copies of the IRI poll-watcher manual for its own use.

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