TURKMENISTAN: OSCE/ODIHR TEAM STILL UNDECIDED ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 001360 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN; DRL E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2018 TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM OSCE TX SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: OSCE/ODIHR TEAM STILL UNDECIDED ON REPRESENTATION DURING DECEMBER ELECTIONS, LEANING TOWARD SMALL ELECTION SUPPORT MISSION REF: ASHGABAT 1308 Classified By: Charge Sylvia Reed Curran for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: As of October 14, it appeared that OSCE was still negotiating with the Turkmen government regarding the size and nature of an OSCE group that would come for the December parliamentary elections. Turkmen officials seem to understand little about international election observation, but nevertheless, want OSCE to be present. OSCE representatives want to play a role as well, but appear to believe that it is too soon to send an observation mission, given the work that still needs to be done on national election legislation. OSCE ambassador said ODIHR is leaning toward sending an "election support mission" that will produce a report that will be presented to the Turkmenistan government, but will not be released publicly. Press sources have jumped the gun on OSCE's participation here during the elections, claiming that OSCE has already been formally invited, but the reports may reflect the wishful thinking of Turkmen officials, who know that OSCE's presence will give the elections an air of legitimacy. END SUMMARY. SO WHAT DOES "OBSERVE" MEAN? ¶2. (C) Poloff met on October 8 with outgoing OSCE Political Dimension Officer Evan Tracz to learn more about the ODIHR Needs Assessment Team's final conclusions regarding the extent to which OSCE will be involved in Turkmenistan's December 14 Mejlis (parliamentary) elections. Tracz said that when the team met with senior government officials the week of September 29, the Turkmen understood very little regarding the requirements of hosting an election observation mission, but seemed convinced that they wanted one. The assessment team outlined the difficulty of sending an observer mission here when it was already clear that the country's current election laws needed to be revised in order to be relevant for this election (reftel). (COMMENT: The October 15 edition of the official Neytralniy Turkmenistan newspaper included the new revised Law on Election of Parliamentary Deputies, which updates the law. END COMMENT.) Nevertheless, Turkmen officials indicated that they wanted OSCE representation during the elections, although the form was undetermined. OSCE and the Turkmen government are continuing to negotiate on the form an OSCE mission would take. ¶3. (C) Tracz said that the team was referring to election laws related to changes to the Constitution, which now mandated an expansion of the Mejlis' size from 65 to 125 deputies. The team asked MFA officials, Institute for Democracy and Human Rights officials, Central Election Commission officials, and Mejlis Chairman Nurberdiyeva if maps outlining the voter constituencies for each deputy had been redone, to account for the massive increase in deputies. (NOTE: The October 15 edition of the newspaper also described the boundaries of each constituent district. END NOTE.) Tracz said that none of the government officials seemed to understand the concept of constituent districts, nor did they know how or when that would be done. Even though both old and new Constitutions stated that each deputy was a representative of a district with a roughly even number of voters in it, Tracz said it was unclear whether the deputies ha actually operated as representatives of a constituent district. In the past, there had been deputies that represented the interests of professional unions and womens' organizations, rather than a geographical district. Nurberdiyeva ultimately told members of the ODIHR team that the government intended to divide the country into 125 representational districts before the December election. ¶4. (C) Most of the government officials with whom the team ASHGABAT 00001360 002 OF 003 met seemed largely unprepared for the meeting. On the first day of the team's meetings, government interlocutors said that there would be no revision of election legislation in advance of the elections. However, on the second day, government representatives said that some revision of the legislation would be done, but they did not provide specifics. Mejlis Chairman Nurberdiyeva said that new election legislation would be adopted in November, without providing specific details. OSCE ELECTION MISSION OPTIONS ¶5. (C) Tracz said ODIHR had three options in regard to its representation during the Mejlis elections. The first option would be to send a small "election support mission", which would entail OSCE sending two or three election experts to the OSCE Center in Ashgabat to assist regular staff there with election period reporting. The experts would have no access to polling stations and no published report would be issued. Tracz said that the ODIHR representatives were leaning toward this option, and believed that Turkmen officials also prefer this option, but may want the OSCE group that comes to be somewhat larger. (COMMENT: The OSCE ambassador told us October 15 that ODIHR is strongly leaning toward this "election support mission" option. END COMMENT.) ¶6. (C) The second option was to send a "limited observation mission". This mission envisaged the arrival of 12-15 trained international observers, who would be in the country for about 10 days, and would observe election at the polls in multiple regions. Such a mission should have unfettered access to polling stations and vote tabulations. The third and most unlikely option would be a "full observation mission", which would entail the arrival of more than 100 observers who would be posted at polling stations across the country, and would be given unfettered access to all election processes. Both observation options also envisage the publication of a formal OSCE report on the conduct of the election in the weeks afterward. ¶7. (C) Tracz said that further negotiations between OSCE and the Turkmen government would certainly be taking place, largely because Turkmen officials don't seem to grasp what it would mean to have an observer mission here, and because they want the representation to take a form that is most conducive to serving their interests. Government officials stated that a CIS election observation team would be coming. Tracz also speculated that the government could also invite election observers from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or some other regional body. OFFICIAL PRESS HAS OSCE ALREADY SIGNED ON( ¶8. (C) Although OSCE had still not received an invitation from the Turkmen government to observe the December elections, an article in Neytralniy Turkmenistan on the October 11 meeting of a commission formed to do election preparations, noted that international experts and observers from many countries and international organizations, including OSCE, had already been invited. Agence France Presse also picked up on the statement, although contacts at the OSCE Center denied they had received an invitation as of October 14. ¶9. (C) COMMENT: It appears that both the Turkmen government and the ODIHR team are most likely to agree on an election support mission, rather than an option that would have observers on the ground and a final OSCE report on the election's conduct. Premature press reports may reflect the Turkmen government's strong interest in hosting an OSCE team here during the elections that would give an imprimatur to the election. END COMMENT. ASHGABAT 00001360 003 OF 003 CURRAN