UN MAY PROVIDE TECHNICAL SUPPORT IN NEXT HONDURAN

UNCLAS TEGUCIGALPA 001909 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KDEM PREL HO SUBJECT: UN MAY PROVIDE TECHNICAL SUPPORT IN NEXT HONDURAN ELECTIONS ¶1. On December 13, 2007 The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resident Representative, Rebeca Arias, called a meeting of the G-16 plus the Organization of American States (OAS) to discuss the November 2009 general elections in Honduras. Since 2005, the OAS has been assisting the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) in several technical areas, but believes it is precluded from overhauling the entire system and then assisting in the counting, as it would give the negative appearance that it were serving as both "judge" and "jury." As a consequence, the OAS advised the TSE to officially request technical assistance from another entity. The TSE thus officially requested assistance from UNDP, which brought its foremost elections expert, Colombian Carlos Mario Valenzuela, to Honduras for a ten-day evaluation. ¶2. During his trip, Valenzuela visited with the TSE and the National Register of Persons (RNP),in addition to other GOH Ministries and various non-governmental organizations. On December 11, the press quoted Valenzuela as saying that the UNDP is considering providing technical assistance to the GOH to avoid the slowness of the transmission of results that occurred in the 2005 elections by creating a mechanism that would permit rapid and timely results of primary and general elections. Valenzuela later told us the UN would hope to provide information technology and other technical assistance to both the TSE and the RNP, with the first goal to begin cleaning up the voters list. He opined that the Honduran political parties are terrified of technological advances, and predicted they would be resistant to any change. Despite this, UNDP Honduras now will go to the Political Office of the UN to request that they approve this project in Honduras. ¶3. With the move by the parties to shift the internal elections to November 2008 (instead of February 2009) this gives the TSE, with the help of the UN, three fewer months to get the lists in shape. Valenzuela estimated the first phase of the UN technical assistance project would cost USD 300 thousand, which Arias said the UNDP should be able to cover with Swedish money already in the pipeline. The second phase would cost approximately USD 3 million, and the UNDP will be looking for donors to contribute to a general fund or agree to take and fund subsections of the project if it is approved in New York. ¶4. Comment: The UN evaluation, which will be forwarded to WHA/CEN via email, was spot on. The system is sufficiently weak that it might not survive a truly contentious election/election result, so the money would be well spent on supporting these institutions. End Comment. FORD