US embassy cable - 05VIENNA2925

UNCLAS VIENNA 002925 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR EUR/AGS - VIKMANIS-KELLER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, EAID, HA, AU 
SUBJECT: DEMARCHE TO AUSTRIA:  COORDINATION ON ELECTORAL 
OBSERVATION MISSIONS IN HAITI 
 
REF: STATE 157629 
 
This cable is sensitive but unclassified.  Please handle 
accordingly. 
 
1,  After coordinating with the Canadian Embassy, 
EconPolCouns delivered reftel demarche to Andreas Melan, the 
DAS-level head of Latin American affairs in the Austrian 
Foreign Ministry.  Melan said the European Commission had 
made Haiti a priority for election monitoring.  The EU had 
sent an assessment team to Haiti to prepare for a monitoring 
mission.  Melan said he expected the results of the 
assessment mission at the September or October COLAT meeting. 
 If the report is favorable, then the European Commission 
will send a monitoring team for the November 6 elections and 
(if necessary) December 11 second round.  Melan thought it 
likely that some Austrians would respond to a call for 
election observers. 
 
2.  Canada had asked the European Commission several times to 
join in a combined election monitoring effort, Melan said. 
However, the Commission had responded that it could not do 
so, for technical reasons.  Melan admitted that he did not 
know what those reasons were, but said it was clear that the 
Commission never participated in joint election monitoring 
with other entities. 
 
3.  Melan asked what we thought of the candidate list in 
Haiti.  It struck him that Lavalas supporters were prominent, 
a situation which, he said, did not bode well for the future. 
van Voorst