DUSHANBE, February 13, 2015, Asia-Plus — The Central Commission for Elections and Referenda (CCER) head Shermuhammad Shohiyon is receiving members of the election observation mission of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (IPA CIS) today, Abdumannon Dodozoda, the head of the CCR’s office, has told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, the IPA CIS election observation mission includes 19 members and is led by the IPA CIS Secretary-General Aleksey Sergeyev.
The mission members reportedly include Ion Lipciu, Deputy Secretary General of the CIS IPA Council and Andrey Baranov, Director of the International Institute for Monitoring Democracy Development, Parliamentarianism and Suffrage Protection of Citizens of the IPA CIS Member Nations.
Today the CCER head will also receive the first group of the CIS election observers, led by the CIS Executive Committee deputy head Vladimir Garkun.
To-date, the CCER has registered 56 international observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States, Dodozoda noted.
In all, more than 500 representatives of regional, international organizations and separate countries will monitor the upcoming parliamentary elections in Tajikistan as international observers.
The Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, established in March 1995, is a consultative parliamentary wing of the CIS created to discuss problems of parliamentary cooperation. A team of international observers delegated by the IPA CIS is embedded in a larger CIS observation mission to monitor the 2015 parliamentary elections in Tajikistan.
The CIS Election Monitoring Organization is an election monitoring body that was formed in October 2002, following a Commonwealth of Independent States heads of states meeting which adopted the Convention on the Standards of Democratic Elections, Electoral Rights, and Freedoms in the Member States of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The CIS -EMO has been sending election observers to member countries of the CIS since this time; they approved many elections which have been heavily criticized by independent observers.
