DEMARCHE TO AUSTRIA: COORDINATION ON ELECTORAL

UNCLAS VIENNA 002925 SIPDIS SENSITIVE STATE FOR EUR/AGS - VIKMANIS-KELLER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL EAID HA AU SUBJECT: DEMARCHE TO AUSTRIA: COORDINATION ON ELECTORAL OBSERVATION MISSIONS IN HAITI REF: STATE 157629 This cable is sensitive but unclassified. Please handle accordingly. 1, After coordinating with the Canadian Embassy, EconPolCouns delivered reftel demarche to Andreas Melan, the DAS-level head of Latin American affairs in the Austrian Foreign Ministry. Melan said the European Commission had made Haiti a priority for election monitoring. The EU had sent an assessment team to Haiti to prepare for a monitoring mission. Melan said he expected the results of the assessment mission at the September or October COLAT meeting. If the report is favorable, then the European Commission will send a monitoring team for the November 6 elections and (if necessary) December 11 second round. Melan thought it likely that some Austrians would respond to a call for election observers. ¶2. Canada had asked the European Commission several times to join in a combined election monitoring effort, Melan said. However, the Commission had responded that it could not do so, for technical reasons. Melan admitted that he did not know what those reasons were, but said it was clear that the Commission never participated in joint election monitoring with other entities. ¶3. Melan asked what we thought of the candidate list in Haiti. It struck him that Lavalas supporters were prominent, a situation which, he said, did not bode well for the future. van Voorst