Foreign observers gear up for polls

Foreign observers gear up for polls

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Two foreign agencies officially registered to monitor the
presidential election runoff have arrived here to observe the
poll from the opening until vote counting.

The Atlanta-based Carter Center said in a statement made
available to The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that it would deploy a
team of 57 personnel for the mission.

The team, led by Ambassador Douglas Peterson, will witness the
poll opening, balloting and vote counting at numerous polling
stations in 21 of the country's 32 provinces.

Peterson served as the first post-war U.S. ambassador to
Vietnam after serving three terms as representative of Florida's
2nd Congressional District in the U.S. House.

David Carroll, interim director of the Center's Democracy
Program, said that the deployment of the monitoring team shows
the significance of the country's election runoff on Sept. 20,
2004.

"The presence of international observers is an important
demonstration of the interest of the international community in
supporting Indonesia's democratization." he said.

Carroll said that the final round of the presidential poll
would be the last in a series of important elections in Indonesia
this year, providing Indonesia citizens with their first
opportunity to directly elect their president.

The Center deployed 60 observers for the first round of the
presidential election on July 5, led by former U.S. president
Jimmy Carter and former Thai prime minister Chuan Leekpai.

The Carter Center has had 14 long-term observers based
throughout Indonesia since May 2004 to monitor and assess the
electoral process and political environment.

The center was founded in 1982 by Carter and Rosalynn in
partnership with Emory University to advance the causes of peace
and public health worldwide.

Another independent foreign poll monitoring team, the European
Union Election Observation Mission (EU-EOM), said on Wednesday
that 125 observers had arrived in Jakarta from Europe to begin
their observation mission in Indonesia.

"The observers will be deployed in all the country's provinces
where they will meet our long-term observers who have done their
work since September last year," EU-EOM chief observer Glyn Ford
said in a separate statement.

He said the observers would monitor the whole electoral
process from the opening of polling stations through to the vote
counting.

The EU-EOM mission consists of 65 long-time observers, 125
short-term members and 18 officials assigned by embassies of EU-
member countries in Jakarta, as well as a team of experts.

The EU had also deployed many observers to monitor the first
round of the presidential election and the legislative elections
in all the country's 32 provinces, which Ford described as "one
of the most complex elections in the world".

The EU-EOM is the biggest foreign election monitoring team in
Indonesia.