I just had a note from my contact inside the election observing mission:
I heard today that they will ask for 900 observers. The only route is through Foreign Ministries who will send official observers. I am unsure if we will get this number – when we asked for 600 we got 350. Some of the “big” states sent 0!
By all means ask people to apply to their respective Foreign Ministries. I am unsure what effect the clash with xmas will have – surprisingly it has not been too much of a problem in other years, but then this number of observers was never requested before.
However, if you’re Irish, don’t put yourself out. I got this note from the relevant person in the Department for Foreign Affairs in Dublin:
The OSCE have requested that priority be given to those who have already participated in the Election Observation Missions on the two previous occasions [ie the two rounds of the presidential election in November]; so far, two people are available to return (for the third time) to Ukraine. There will also be representation from the Department. I also have Observers on our Roster who participated in the Elections in Ukraine last time [ie the parliamentary elections in 2002]. I therefore would not require any new offers at this stage.
However, I invite anyone who is interested in being part of our Roster to complete our application form; following that we invite applicants for an interview at this office. These interviews take place regularly here.
She did send me a copy of the form, and I’ll happily pass that on, together with her contact details, to interested parties (ie Irish citizens interested in future election observation missions).
Indeed, as soon as we became aware that the good reverend was coming to Edinburgh, we made sure that our banners thoroughly took the piss out of the likes of him, too. One of our members is very pleased to have been called names by him.
The focus of our protest against the Pope was the hypocritical stance taken by Benedict XVI in his consistent efforts to try and blame the child abuse scandals on pooves, and to use that to justify his equally consistent efforts to oppose human rights for LGBT people everywhere. Having a second homophobe who uses religion as an excuse for hatred in town that day just made it all the more fun. Had we had more warning, we’d have made some reference to him on the commemorative condom packs we gave out.