Brussels, 27 September 2005 - ALDE Member Emma Bonino (Radical Party, IT) has just returned back from Afghanistan where she acted as Head of the EU election observation mission to the 18 September 2005 elections for the Wolesi Jirga (lower house of the new National Assembly). Since the beginning of July, the mission has observed the electoral process in 29 of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan. It was able to draw on the findings of a total of 159 observers in nearly 900 polling stations. The election observation mission will remain in the country until the end of October to observe counting and tabulation, for example. Commenting on the outcome of the elections, Emma Bonino said: "By large, the election day was peaceful and generally well-administered. Millions of Afghan voters and thousands of candidates participated in the electoral process, many of them showing great courage in the face of a challenging security environment. This marks a first, positive step in building democracy in Afghanistan. It lays the foundations for future work that needs to be accomplished in this country".

  Furthermore, Emma Bonino will also be attending the International Conference on Political pluralism and Electoral Processes, held in Rabat on 1-3 October 2005. This conference, organised by the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Morocco and Italy, together with the NGO "No Peace Without Justice", is the follow up to the Sana'a Conference of January 2004. It will gather governments and civil society to reflect upon democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Emma Bonino will participate in the opening session and in light of her recent experience in Afghanistan, she will reflect upon a variety of issues, such as electoral systems, the role of political parties in building democracy and access to media in pluralistic societies. "The choice to focus on these items reflects the efforts and accomplishments of actors in the region, as recently illustrated by the elections held in Palestine, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Egypt", she explained.