OBSERVERS FROM CAUCASUS, CENTRAL ASIA INVITED TO MONITOR NORWAY’S ELECTIONS

The Associated Press
08/25/05 10:37 EDT

OSLO, Norway (AP) – The watched will become the watchers next month
when election observers from eight former Soviet republics monitor
Norway’s national elections, officials said Thursday.

Observers from countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe have
been invited to monitor the Sept. 12 vote in Norway, which has a long
tradition of nurturing democracy worldwide.

Helge Blakkisrud, of the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs,
said it would be the largest international observer team – with 26
members – ever invited to a Norwegian election. It would also be one
of the first cases of observers from the former Soviet republics,
many of which are still struggling with the transition to democracy,
monitoring an election in the West.

Countries represented on the team would be Azerbaijan, Georgia,
Moldova, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan,
he said.

“It is unusual that election observers would come from those areas,”
said Blakkisrud.

He said in some of the countries there is a feeling that the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which often sends
election observers, has singled out the former Soviet bloc countries
for scrutiny.

“We wanted them to see that it is a two-way street,” he said. “We
also wanted them to see the Norwegian election culture. Many of them
come from countries with a fundamental lack of confidence in the
electoral process.”

Norway, like the other Nordic countries, has a highly developed
democracy and a strong tradition of free and fair elections.

Blakkisrud said they had wanted the OSCE to organize the election
monitoring, but the group did not have the capacity to do it. So they
decided to invite observers themselves to monitor that the election
meets OSCE standards, and then file a report.

The observers will be deployed in the Oslo region, and in Norway’s
second largest city Bergen, on the west coast.

Blakkisrud said many of the observers have experience monitoring
elections in their own region.