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