On Wednesday 23 February, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, announced the deployment of an EU Election Observation Mission to observe the Lebanese parliamentary elections scheduled for 15 May 2022, in response to the country's invitation.
György Hölvényi MEP (EPP, Hungary) was appointed by Mr Borrell as Chief Observer of the mission, which, according to the High Representative, “will contribute to an inclusive and transparent electoral process and to the strengthening of the democratic path and reforms in Lebanon”.
The core team of electoral analysts, based in Beirut, will arrive in the country at the end of March and will consist of 10 election experts. In mid-April, 30 long-term observers will join the mission and will be deployed to the regions to follow the political campaign.
Forty short-term observers will join the mission in the run-up to election day to observe voting, polling and counting. Some of them will also cover the out-of-country voting in a number of countries where there is a significant presence of the Lebanese diaspora, the European Service said in its statement. Additional short-term observers, recruited from within the EU diplomatic community in Lebanon, will also be there to reinforce the mission on election day.
This will be the fourth time that the EU deploys an EOM to Lebanon after 2005, 2009 and 2018. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)