OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President to lead short-term election observation mission in Serbia

COPENHAGEN, 12 January 2007 - The President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, Swedish Parliamentarian Goran Lennmarker, has been appointed to lead the OSCE short-term election observation mission to the 21 January parliamentary elections in Serbia.

President Lennmarker was appointed Special Co-ordinator for the Mission today by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

The OSCE Election Observation Mission is a joint undertaking of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, which has deployed a long-term mission headed by Geert Ahrens.

Lennmarker, who has extensive experience in public office, elections and in OSCE election observation missions, will also lead the delegation of some sixty parliamentarians from the OSCE PA.

On Election Day, observers will be deployed to polling stations to monitor the sealing of ballot boxes, voting and the counting of ballots.

The OSCE Observation Mission will also work in close co-operation with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly as well as with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Since 1993, the OSCE PA has deployed more than 2200 parliamentarians to observe 82 elections across the OSCE region.

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, created by the CSCE Summit in Paris in 1990, is the parliamentary dimension of the 56-state Organization. The primary task of the 320-member Assembly is to facilitate inter-parliamentary dialogue.