Parliamentary Elections, 24 September 2017

Following an invitation from the Permanent Mission of the Federal Republic of Germany to the OSCE, and based on the findings and conclusions of a Needs Assessment Mission (NAM), ODIHR has deployed an Election Expert Team (EET) for the 24 September parliamentary elections.

The NAM assessed the pre-election environment and preparations for the parliamentary elections in order to recommend whether to deploy an OSCE/ODIHR election-related activity for the forthcoming elections, and if so, what type of activity best meet the identified needs. The NAM recommended to deploy an EET for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Mission Activities

The EET began its work on 11 September and includes three international experts, drawn from three OSCE participating States.

The EET will assess the electoral process for compliance with OSCE commitments, other international obligations and standards for democratic elections, as well as national legislation. Experts will look at the campaign finance system and the campaign environment.

In line with ODIHR’s methodology, the EET will not carry out systematic or comprehensive observation of voting, counting, or tabulation on election day. Team members will, however, visit a small number of polling stations across the country to follow election day procedures.

The team, which will remain in Germany until 28 September, will issue a report approximately two months after the completion of the electoral process.

Previous Elections

The OSCE/ODIHR previously assessed two elections in Germany, most recently the 2013 parliamentary elections.