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Senator Consiglio Di Nino, accompanied by Natalie Mychajlyszyn of the Library of Parliament, was part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Election Observation Mission (EOM) that monitored the presidential elections held in the Kyrgyz Republic on 23 July 2009. The OSCE Election Observation mission was a joint initiative of the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) and it’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The Mission was deployed at the invitation of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, pursuant to commitments made by all OSCE participating states. On the recommendation of the President of the OSCE PA, Mr. Joao Soares, Senator Consiglio Di Nino was appointed Special Co-ordinator of the Short-Term Observer Mission of the OSCE EOM by the Chairperson-in-Office of the OSCE, Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis. He was also head of the OSCE PA delegation. The Short-Term Observer Mission comprised 28 parliamentarians from the OSCE PA and 277 ODIHR observers who monitored election day voting and tabulation of votes. The ODIHR team also comprised 11 experts and 24 long-term observers who were deployed in all regions of the country starting on 8 June 2009. As Special Co-ordinator and Head of the OSCE PA delegation, Senator Di Nino had several meetings prior to election day with OSCE officials, including the Janez Lenarcic, Director of ODIHR, Radmila Sekerinska, Head of the ODIHR mission and Ambassador Andrew Tesoriere, Head of the OSCE Centre in Bishkek. Senator Di Nino met with the Head of the Central Election Commission for the Kyrgyz Republic, Damir Vladimirovich Lisovskiy, the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament, Cholpon Baekova, and the Kyrgyz Republic’s parliamentary delegation to the OSCE PA; and he met with the election observation missions of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Commonwealth for Independent States. Senator Di Nino also discussed the regional, political and economic aspects of the presidential elections with the Canadian Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Margaret Skok, the German Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Holger Green, and representatives from the Agha Khan Development Network, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the International Monetary Fund. Finally, Senator Di Nino attended and spoke at the briefing sessions for the short-term observers. On election day, Senator Di Nino and his observation team, which included Andreas Baker, Presidential Advisor at the OSCE PA Secretariat, and Natalie Mychajlyszyn, Analyst, Library of Parliament, attended the opening of a polling station in Bishkek, observed voting at a polling station in a suburb of Bishkek and at a rural polling station. Natalie Mychajlyszyn also observed the closing and tabulation of votes at a polling station in Bishkek. The day after the election, on 24 July, Senator Di Nino met with election observers of the OSCE PA for a debriefing. That afternoon, as Special Coordinator of the Short-Term Observer Mission, he presented the preliminary report on behalf of the OSCE at a well-attended press conference in Bishkek. The full preliminary report prepared jointly by the OSCE PA and ODIHR missions is available in English at the following site: http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr-el/2009/07/39015_en.pdf The final report is available in English at the
following site:
Respectfully submitted,
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