Washington, DC – IRI today announced it will send a delegation to Panama to assess the May 4, 2014 general elections in which the country will elect a new national assembly and a new president. Following the voting, IRI will issue a statement on the findings of the delegation.
The delegates are:
- Piero Alessandro Corvetto, manager of the National Electoral Registry of Peru’s National Registry of Identification and Civil Status;
- Luis G. Fortuño, former governor of Puerto Rico;
- Luis Carlos Ugalde, former president of Mexico’s Federal Electoral Institute (now known as the National Electoral Institute) and currently the director general of Integralia Consultores;
- Stephen Johnson, director of IRI’s Latin America and Caribbean programs; and
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Patricio Gajardo, former Latin America and Caribbean division director at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, and now resident country director of IRI’s Mexico office.
Prior to the elections, delegates have planned meetings with representatives from Panama’s Electoral Tribunal, political party representatives and local civil society leaders including leaders from the Catholic Church. The delegates will also meet with representatives of the Organization of American States observation mission and officials with the U.S. Embassy.
In addition to fielding a delegation to assess the elections, IRI has partnered with the Comisión Justicia y Paz (Justice and Peace Commission), a Panamanian civil society organization with a respected history of observing elections, to recruit and train 2,000 local observers. Those local observers will be deployed throughout Panama on Election Day to monitor the process.
IRI’s assessment mission is funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Since 1983, IRI has monitored 154 elections in more than 47 countries.
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