WASHINGTON, USA – The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) signed a technical cooperation agreement with the National Civil Registry of Colombia and the National Electoral Council (CNE) to help improve electoral processes in the South American country.
The secretary-general of the OAS, Luis Almagro, said: “The OAS General Secretariat and Colombia have a long history of collaboration in electoral matters. In these efforts, we recognize the willingness and commitment of Colombia’s electoral institutions to improve democracy and its electoral processes.”
For her part, the president of the National Electoral Council of Colombia, Doris Méndez, highlighted her country’s confidence in the electoral work of the OAS, whose missions and technical cooperation contribute to “generate guarantees and security in our electoral processes,” said the head of the CNE.
For his part, the National Registrar of the Civil Status of Colombia, Alexander Vega, said that in matters of democracy “the OAS is our multilateral organization of reference” in the Hemisphere. “We know that the recommendations of the OAS will give us the transparency and guarantees necessary to carry out successful elections,” added Registrar Vega.
The agreement signed at OAS headquarters in Washington provides for the OAS to provide technical support to Colombia’s electoral bodies in various initiatives over the next few years.
In addition to this technical cooperation agreement, the OAS secretary general accepted the invitation of the electoral bodies to deploy an Electoral Observation Mission for next year’s legislative and presidential elections.