2 May 2012
The monitoring mission of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which will observe this Sunday's elections in Serbia, will comprise more than 35 members, the organisation has announced.
The OSCE monitoring mission in Serbia will be headed by Italian Matteo Mecacci who was appointed special coordinator by OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Ireland's Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore.
"I hope that the elections, which we will observe this Sunday, will be seen as a successful model for a wider area of the OSCE activity," he said.
General, local and presidential elections in Serbia are scheduled for May 6.
Mecacci is to deliver his assessment of the elections in Serbia on May 7, the day after the polls.
The OSCE will determine to what extent the country has managed to meet the OSCE goals listed in the Copenhagen Document of 1990, to which Serbia is a signatory, the release reads.
In addition, the OSCE will organize and facilitate balloting by Serbs in the former Serbian province of Kosovo who have dual nationality.
Brussels, Belgrade and Pristina have been negotiating for days to find a solution on how to let Kosovo Serbs vote in Serbia's presidential and parliamentary polls.
Kosovo has been adamant that it will not allow Serbia - which does not recognise Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence - to pay any direct role in organising ballots inside the country.
The plan therefore is for the OSCE to provide the logistics. The general and presidential elections in Kosovo will be held in 90 polling stations. The counting of the votes will be held in Vranje and Raska in Serbia.
