From Caribbean News Now

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent — The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will send an electoral observation mission to monitor the general elections to be held in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) on Wednesday, December 9, 2015.

The chief of mission is Gasper Jn Baptiste, chief elections officer in Saint Lucia. The other members of the mission come from Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados and Jamaica. They will be accompanied by a two-member CARICOM Secretariat support team.

The core group, which includes the chief of mission and the CARICOM Secretariat support staff, were due to arrive in SVG on December 4-5, while the remaining members of the mission will arrive on December 6 and depart on December 10. The core group will leave on December 11.

The CARICOM electoral observer mission will meet with electoral officials, leaders of political parties and other stakeholders. On the day of the elections, the mission will monitor the electoral process, the closing of the poll and the counting of the ballots.

For CARICOM, election observation serves as a platform to support existing democratic traditions within the Caribbean Community as part of its wider policy of supporting democracy.

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