Middle East Online
RABAT – Following a four-day visit by a delegation of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) that began on Wednesday, the 9th of November in Morocco, the legislative elections of the 25th of November are set to be perfectly transparent.
In addition to teams of national observers that are expected to be present in the field, the elections will witness international scrutiny, notably European.
The visit of the PACE delegation, headed by Tomas Jirsa, a Czech Senator, came within the framework of the observation of Morocco legislative elections. Following the delegation’s pre-electoral visit, the PACE, which has already participated in the observation of 140 electoral events, will deploy up to twenty observers to oversee Moroccan polls.
The PACE, comprising 318 members of parliament from the 47 Council of Europe member states, has granted, earlier this year, the status of ‘Partner for Democracy’ to the Moroccan parliament as part of a move aiming at establishing institutional co-operation with parliaments of non-member states in neighbouring regions.
The special accreditation commission has approved the final list of national and international organizations that will supervise the legislative elections in Morocco. The National Human Right Council in Morocco (CNDH) has indicated that the list includes 16 organizations and a total of around 400 observers.
On a national level, 12 organizations have been accredited: the Election Supervisory Association, CNDH, the Individual Rights Centre, the Moroccan Democratic Civil Forum, the Alkarama Forum for Human Rights, the Moroccan Human Rights Institute, the Youth Alliance for Reforms, the Urban Initiative Association, the Chourouk Centre for Democracy, Information and Human Rights, the Federation of the Democratic League of Women’s Rights, the Women’s Creativity Association and the Touiza Association. Four international NGOs have been accredited: the National Democratic Institute, Gender Concerns International and The International Research Group for Trans-regional and Emerging Area Studies.
The commission has announced that it has “rejected a number of applications by organizations that did not comply with the conditions set by law 30.11 about independent and neutral observation of elections”.
