Above: The OAS mission is headed by Ambassador Alfonso Quiñónez (third from left) (CJ Photo)

By Alexander Britell

NASSAU — Electoral observers from CARICOM and the Organization of American States have arrived in Nassau to watch the electoral process and the country’s May 7 vote.

It is the first time the Bahamas has invited electoral observation missions to the country.

“We are going to be observing the process, we are going to be observing what the stakeholders in the process are going to be doing,” said Ambassador Alfonso Quiñónez, Chief of the OAS Mission at a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We are going to have the opportunity to witness the exercise on May the 7th, but also before that, we are going to be able to meet with the different parties in this process,” he said.

The OAS and the Bahamas officially signed an agreement Wednesday allowing the OAS, as an international organization to conduct its proceedings and witness the electoral process.

That follows the signing of an agreement April 26 concerning the privileges and immunities of the mission.

The OAS team will include 18 observers, with CARICOM’s mission to consist of 10 members.

“We are not here to judge, we are not here to serve as referees,” Quiñónez said. “We are not here to substitute the institutions of the Bahamas — we are here to observe this process, but certainly, if there are issues we would raise those with the proper authorities.”

Both sides pointed to the Bahamas’ history of high voter participation, which exceeded 90 percent in the last election in 2007.

“That speaks highly about the maturity of the Bahamian electoral process,” he said.

Orrette Fisher, head of the CARICOM mission, said he had never seen a level of turnout that high in his experience observing elections.

“My research has indicated that the Bahamas has a very robust democracy,” said Fisher, the director of elections at the Electoral Office of Jamaica, a country which has held two elections in the last six months, both national and municipal. “[It is] robust in terms of its authenticity as well as the level of interaction between the opposing factions in that persons seems to support their parties very strongly — so much so that you manage to have voter turnout in excess of 90 percent, which in most jurisdictions is unheard of.”

The CARICOM mission includes members from Caribbean nations including Guyana, Antigua, Barbados and Trinidad, among others.

“Our job, as far as I’m concerned, is just to observe the process,” Fisher said. “We are obviously not expected nor are we intending to have any direct influence or seek to instruct or affect the process in any way.”

Quiñónez said the mission would have “interaction” with CARICOM’S observers, as it was not the first time both missions had observed elections in the same country.

The Bahamian vote is the latest in a string of recent observations missions undertaken by the OAS in the region, which has watched elections in four countries: Belize, Jamaica, St Lucia and Guyana, since November 2011.

The CARICOM observation mission is led by Jamaica’s Orrette Fisher, second from left (CJ Photo)

“In any election, we look for certain issues, what is important for us according to the framework we are given is by the Inter-American Democratic Charter is that elections are free and fair,” Quiñónez said. “That’s the essence: transparency, that there is a possibility for everybody to vote, so those are the issues that we are looking for, and those are the issues that are going to be referred in our report.”

Parliamentary Commissioner Errol Bethel said Bahamian electoral officials would work with the missions “as best we can to make sure that they are able to do their work as observers in these elections.”

The US Embassy in Nassau will also be observing the electoral process, according to Bethel.

Following their observation missions, both organizations will file official reports with their findings.

“As we all know, no election is perfect in itself, and there are going to be issues,” Quiñónez said. “What is important is that the institutions of the country address those issues and we have no doubt that that is going to be the case here in the Bahamas.”