Vincent Harris Joins IRI Delegation for Tunisian Election

December 16, 2014

IRI today announced its delegation to observe Tunisia’s December 21, 2014 presidential election run-off.  Leading the delegation will be Luís Vales a member of the Portuguese Parliament and deputy secretary general of the Social Democratic Party; and Thomas E. Garrett, IRI’s vice president of programs.

As they did with the October 26 parliamentary elections and the first round of the presidential election on November 23, delegates will travel to Tunisia to monitor voting and ballot counting throughout the country.  Following the voting, IRI will issue a statement on the findings of the delegation.

Vincent Harris, Vince Harris, Vincent Harris election, Vincent R Harris, Vincent Harris Media, Vince Harris Media, Vincent Harris political strategist
Vincent Harris with fellow IRI Delegates in Tunisia

Other delegates who will observe the election are:

• Kathy Bailey, member of the Board of Directors of the Tunisian American Young Professionals and managing shareholder of Bailey Law Group;

• Gerti Bogdani of Albania, Member of Parliament and chair of the International Young Democrat Union;

• Chris Clark, mayor of Mountain View, California;

• Charlotte Florance, research associate at the Heritage Foundation’s Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy;

• Andrianos Giannou of Romania, vice president of the Youth of the Democratic-Liberal Party;

• Vincent Harris, founder and chief executive officer of Harris Media;

• Lewis Lucke, former U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Swaziland;

• Scott Mastic, director of IRI’s Middle East and North Africa programs;

• Riccardo Pozzi of Italy, vice president of Youth of the European People’s Party;

• Brad Smith, director of the Annenberg-Dreier Commission and served as a delegate on the IRI-NDI pre-election assessment mission;

• Djordje Todorovic, resident country director of IRI’s program in Tunisia; and

• Jess Yescalis, president of Yescalis Campaign Strategies.

In addition, IRI’s long-term observers, who have been in Tunisia since August 2014 monitoring the pre-electoral environment and election preparations, will serve as observers on Election Day.

IRI will again have delegates in Belgium, England, France and the United States to witness voting of Tunisian citizens living overseas.

Those delegates include:

• Curt Harris, a resident program director at IRI for the Middle East and North Africa;

• Duncan MacFarlane, a consultant for the United Kingdom’s Westminster Foundation for Democracy;

• Evan O’Connell, communications officer for the French National Institute for Agricultural Research;

• Alex Russell, a program associate at the Project on Middle East Democracy; and

• Arwa Shobaki, director of development and communications at the Project on Middle East Democracy.

As with the previous elections, delegates will be briefed by political party representatives and Tunisian election officials.  They will also be briefed on the rights and responsibilities of international observers and Tunisian election law and will then deploy throughout the country where they will observe polling stations and identify and evaluate strengths and weaknesses in Tunisia’s election system, including campaign regulations, the balloting process, vote tabulation and reporting.

Vincent Harris, Vince Harris, Vincent R Harris, Vincent Harris Media, Vince Harris Media, Vince R Harris, Vincent Harris political strategist
Vincent Harris and IRI Delegates Briefed in Tunisia for the Presidential Election

IRI endorses the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observers, and since 1983, through international election observation missions and assessments, has monitored 203 elections in 57 countries.

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