Cis Interparliamentary Assembly Approves Democratic Election Standards Convention

The Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (I.P.A.) of the Commonwealth of the Independent States (CIS) Saturday met in session to approve a draft of a convention on democratic standards for elections in the ex-Soviet states. The convention was drafted on the initiative of the I.P.A. human rights commission and now has to be adopted by each member state individually. Chairman of the Russian Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, said the document brings together all the existing stipulations of the electoral law. The draft encodes and builds on international law governing the election process, fixes the stipulations of international electoral monitoring, and defines the status of international observers. In addition, the document provides for creation of a body named International Electoral Council, which is charged with helping monitor elections in signatory states.