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| EU election monitors |
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| BRUSSELS (APP): The European Union will deploy about 100 observers in Afghanistan to help monitor presidential and provincial elections in August, the bloc's executive arm said Monday. Seventeen experts arrived in the insurgency-hit country in early July. They will be joined by others "to assess the campaign period and pre-election preparations around the country, and the voting, counting and the tabulation of results," the European Commission said in a statement.
The EU mission for the August 20 polls will be led
by European lawmaker Philippe Morillon, the former French
general who commanded UN forces in Bosnia in 1992-93.
Protection for the monitors is to be provided by
private security firms and the Afghan police, and if necessary
soldiers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF).
A commission spokeswoman said the observers would
be deployed regionally, but experts consider it unlikely that
they will watch over the polls across the country, particularly
in the strife-torn south. |
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