Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organisation of American States (OAS) are sending a joint team of observers to Haiti to prepare for legislative and presidential elections on November 28.

Almolst 200 observers will be deployed to Haiti and will be responsible for monitoring the process before, during and after the elections. An initial group of observers is scheduled to arrive on the 5th of August.

This is the first time that the OAS and CARICOM have partnered to observe an election, said OAS Assistant Secretary General Albert R. Ramdin in a release today.

“We believe that if a country is in need of help, whether it’s political, economic or social, or whether it is in need of technical assistance, we need to work together with the subregional integration entity or cooperation entity, in this case CARICOM,” said Ramdin.

He said that preparations for the election are on schedule, “So if everything goes well in terms of technical preparation we believe we can have free, fair and credible elections.”

According to the OAS representative timely elections will improve the reconstruction process.

The total costs of the elections are estimated at 29 million dollars. 7 million will be provided by the Haitian government and the rest by the international community.

Elections were postponed after the January 12 earthquake.

(Sources: AFP, Jamaica Observer)