The Chief Planning & Coordination Officer (Dr. Seong-Ryong Lee) of the National Election Commission participated in the meeting of the Community of Democracies Working Group on Regional Cooperation in Geneva on March 1, 2012. Under the theme of “Exchange of views and experience in assisting electoral processes and in consolidating democratic institutions through regional cooperation”, Dr. Lee made a presentation on the NEC’s support cases titled “The way to support for the settlement of democratic institutions of emerging democracies”.

The main content of the presentation is as follows: the first-priority for the settlement of democracies of emerging democracies is to realize free and fair elections; and to this end, necessary institutional mechanism is ‘to secure independency and neutrality of election commissions from a government and ruling party’.

The NEC is supporting emerging democracies in various ways: providing revised drafts of the Political Parties Act, Election Commission Act and Election Act; dispatching election observation groups; hosting training workshop projects; and donating election-related machines and administrative equipment.

The NEC is also working on establishing the Association of the World Election Bodies (A-WEB) which will be able to encourage the election bodies, regional associations and international organizations in the world to work together in order to provide systematic support for the settlement of democracy and make the international standard for free and fair elections.

※    The Community of Democracies seeks to enhance regional and cross-regional cooperation for the promotion of democracy. Its main purpose is to explore practical and effective ways and means to further consolidate regional cooperation in the field of democracy, and to encourage cross-regional cooperation for the sharing of experiences and best practices in democratization and the consolidation of democracy.