A-WEB's Romanian Tryst

August-September, 2017 saw the Carpathian country of Romania play host to 56 member-countries of Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB) for three key, apex-level forums- Extraordinary Meeting of the Executive Board, the General Assembly and, the International Conference on 'Counting the Ballots and Accounting for the Votes- The Use of Technology for Enhancing the Transparency of the Electoral Process'.

Marking the week-long event, Romania took over as the Chair of A-WEB (2017-19), while India was elected as the Vice-Chair. A product of an amendment to the A-WEB Charter, the Executive Board was expanded to include 21 members from the existing 13. Apart from the reshuffling of the Executive Board, (that involved- the inclusion of Burkina Faso, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi and Tunisia as representatives from Africa; Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador and Paraguay from the Americas; Bangladesh, Palestine, Taiwan and Uzbekistan from Asia; Albania, Belarus and Croatia from Europe and, Fiji from Oceania) four new Election Management Bodies from Papua New Guinea, Colombia, Peru and Somalia made their entry as full members of A-WEB along with the regional Arab EMBs Association and Association of Asian Election Authorities (AAEA) joining as associate members.

One of the key resolutions adopted during the course of the meet involved the decision to convert A-WEB from an international NGO to a full-fledged Inter-Governmental Organization (IGO). The conference on the The Use of Technology for Enhancing the Transparency of the Electoral Processsaw representatives from Mexico, Samoa, Argentina, the UN Electoral Assistance Division, Mongolia and Iraq keep forward presentations on the concerned theme, with India detailing about the technology presently being used to power its electoral process.