The OAS (Organization of American States) mission began monitoring the elections in Brazil. The column found that some of the observers were already in the country and the full team of 55 would be operational by the beginning of the week.
If initially the idea of the TSE (Supreme Election Court) was to rely on the missions of several other international organisations, the reality is that the government of Jair Bolsonaro vetoed the accession of the European Union.
In July, Bolsonaro mocked the presence of observers in front of foreign ambassadors. “I’m asking you, what are these people coming to Brazil to do? Are they coming to observe that the voting is completely computerized? Are they coming to give an air of legality (to the process)? Do they come to say it’s all done? Normally?” the president asked.
“I have dozens of videos on the occasion of the 2018 election, where voters will and cannot vote,” Bolsonaro said.
As UOL specifically explains, foreign governments are voicing the results of Brazilian polls as soon as they are approved by the TSE to justify it. The aim is to prevent one of the political groups from questioning the fairness of the process. In this case, the presence of international observers can be an important factor.
The OAS team will be led by former Paraguayan Chancellor Rubén Ramírez Lezcano and will include observers from 17 nationalities. Last year, the diplomat headed the OAS mission for elections in Peru, where Pedro Castillo defeated former dictator Alberto Fujimori’s daughter, Keiko Fujimori.
One of the mission’s guidelines this year was not to concentrate its team in a few cities. For this reason, observers were sent to 15 states, including Amazonas, Bahia, Ceará, Goiás, Maranhão, Minas Gerais, Pará, Paraíba, Paraná, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and São Paulo. In addition to the Federal District.
It was determined that the voting process should be carried out abroad as well. For this, three cities were selected to receive observers: Porto, Miami, and Washington.
According to the OAS, the mission team includes “experts who will monitor key aspects of technology and electoral organization, voting abroad, electoral justice, political funding, campaigns and freedom of expression, women’s political participation, indigenous and Afro-descendant groups, and electoral violence”.
Even before election day, the mission began its work and met with election and government officials, political leaders, national observers and other representatives of civil society. According to them, the aim is to “get different views on the elections”.
“These meetings will allow the Mission to conduct a comprehensive analysis of this process, in addition to direct observation and analysis of regulations,” the OAS said. This is the third time the OAS has sent a delegation to observe the electoral processes in Brazil. In 2018 and 2020, reports by the group did not show any patterns of electoral fraud, as President Jair Bolsonaro claimed.
In addition to the OAS, the election will be monitored by the Association of American Electoral Organizations (Uniore), the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), the Carter Center and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems.
source: Noticias
