European Union | Election Observation Mission to Afganistan 2005

European Union Election Observation Mission
Afghanistan 2005

Core Team

Deputy Chief Observer (Greece)
Plamen Tonchev, Holds a Master’s Degree in External Relations of the EU and Diplomacy from the University of Athens, Greece. He has acted as an observer on OSCE and EU missions since 1996: Bosnia (1996 and 1997), Albania (1997), Ukraine (1998), Azerbaijan (1998), Cambodia (1998, 2002 and 2003), Indonesia (1999), East Timor (2001), Pakistan (2002) and Afghanistan (2004 and 2005). Has worked in the area of post-conflict reconstruction and has a number of publications. Since 1999, head of Asia Unit at the Institute of International Economic Relations (IIER), Athens, and a co-founding member of the South European Network for Asian Studies (SENAS). Since 2000, a visiting lecturer at the General Staff of the Greek Ministry of Defence and the National Defence College of Greece.

Election Expert (Spain)
Maria Espinosa has taken part in many election observation missions in the Balkans, Sub-Saharan Africa, South-East Asia and the Middle East. Recently they have included Indonesia, Iraq and Lebanon. She has worked in electoral observation, training of Domestic Observers, Civic Education/Voter Information programmes and the training of Spanish observers. She has also worked as lecturer, trainer and coordinator of projects dealing with conflict management, specialising in communities in conflict in the Middle East. She holds a postgraduate degree in Middle Eastern Sciences and Semitic Philology.

Legal Expert (United Kingdom)
Andrew Caldwell was educated at universities in Scotland, England and Poland and holds degrees in politics and law. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1984, and practised as a barrister in London. He has observed elections in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia 1996-97. He was a United Kingdom Foreign Office appointed Member of the OSCE Mission in Croatia 1998-2000, holding the post of Legal and Human Rights adviser in Vukovar, Eastern Slavonia. Subsequently, he was a UK Mission member of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo June 2000 – November 2004. He was Head of the Central Election Commission Secretariat of Kosovo and Legal Adviser to the OSCE Department of Elections. He was Legal Expert of the European Election Observation Mission in West Bank and Gaza, December 2004 – January 2005.

Security Expert (Germany)
Tom Karl Bil holds a university degree in Political Science from the University of the German Armed Forces Hamburg and a Masters degree in Intercultural Communications and European Studies from the University of Applied Science in Fulda. He served for more than 12 years in the German Armed Forces as an officer in the field of NBC-Defense, environmental protection and command post security. In 2002 he worked for the OSCE mission in Bosnia, and was based in Afghanistan 2004/05 as an International Observer in the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration process of the Afghan Military Forces.

Deputy Security Expert (Ireland)
Peter Mc Mahon served as a military pilot in the Irish Air Force before joining the OSCE as a Security Advisor in Bosnia in 2002. Since then he has been employed in a similar capacity in Albania and Russia in 2003 by OSCE/ODIHR. More recently in June 2005, he went to Burundi on an Exploratory Mission on behalf of the EU, to assess the security situation there and advise on the feasibility of sending an EUEOM to that country. During his time in the military, Peter saw service with the UN in Egypt and Lebanon as a Military Observer and in the Western Sahara as Chief Air Staff Officer. He also served with SFOR in Bosnia in 2002.

Operations Expert (Portugal)
Martim Freire has been working in the field of elections since 1995. He has a wide range of experience as an observer (STO, LTO) and supervisor both for the EU and the OSCE. In the Core Team he has worked as Observer Coordinator in EUEOM East Timor 2001. He was also the Security Expert for the EUEOM Kenya 2002 and was IOM’s Local Dispatcher as the implementing partner for the EUEOM Mozambique 2003. He also worked as the Operations Expert for the EUDESM in Afghanistan 2004. In 2005 he was Assistant Operations Expert for the EU EOM in Ethiopia.

LTO Coordinator (Sweden)
Lars Tollemark has been working since 1995 for EU and OSCE in the area of election monitoring and observation. He has been working in more than 20 electoral missions in Asia, Africa and South America. Lars Tollemark has experience of Core Team work in the position as LTO Co-ordinator from the EU EOM in Nicaragua 2001 and EU EOM in Pakistan 2002. He has been in charge of training of all seconded Swedish election observers between 2000 and 2003.

Deputy LTO Coordinator (Italy)
Roberto Lora has 15 years of experience working in the field of development in several African countries for UN agencies and international non-governmental organisations. He has been a programme manager for a variety of long-term projects focused on reconstruction and development of countries in transition. He worked for several years for the World Food Programme in Mozambique on projects based in primary schools. He was the project manager for a UNDP programme in 2004 to disarm and re-integrate ex-combatants in the Itury region of the Democractic Republic of Congo (DRC), and has also worked on similar projects in Mozambique. He also founded a relief and development non-governmental agency in Mozambique in 1992, called ProLiDe – Progresso, Liberdade, Desenvolvimente.

Media Expert (United Kingdom)
David Ward has worked on a wide range of media law and policy issues for a number of European governments and broadcasters as well as international organisations including the European Commission, Council of Europe and the OSCE. He has also worked on a number of technical assistance programmes and acted as a media analyst on election observation missions. Recently these have included media monitoring of the elections in Tunisia, Palestine, Ethiopian and Moldova. He has a PhD.

Country Expert (United Kingdom)
Lucy Morgan Edwards first travelled to Afghanistan in 1999. She returned to work on urban development, public health and community shuras with UN HABITAT in 2000, and was based in Kandahar at the height of the Taliban regime. Since then she has worked for a variety of organizations including UNAMA (as a monitor of the 2002 Emergency Loya Jirga) for the International Crisis Group, on Transitional Justice issues, and most recently as a Political Adviser to the EU Special Representative. Between 2002 and 2004 she travelled the country as a freelance journalist and has been published widely in the Daily Telegraph, the Economist and Sunday Times. She has almost completed a book which focuses on Afghanistan’s post September 11 transition and the Mujahideen family of the late Commanders Abdul Haq and Haji Qadir. She has built up an extensive range of contacts with Afghan Civil Society, fledgling Democracy Parties, Commanders and former Taliban. She holds a Masters degree in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, London.

Democratisation Expert (Denmark)
Katarina Ammitzboell has more than ten years of experience with governance, conflict resolution and post-conflict situations including Afghanistan, Timor Leste, Burundi, Mozambique, South Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, Senegal, and Chile. She has worked for the United Nations, NGOs, research institutions and government. She holds a BA in political science and a M.Sc. International Development Studies and Public Sector Economics and a LLM (Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law (Oct. 2005). Her area of specialisation is state-building and political institutional development with a focus on democratic governance, constitutional processes, Islamic law and legal pluralism. She has been actively engaged in constitutional processes, rebuilding of judiciary, human rights and elections. She has served in strategic and high-level positions, guided implementation and coordination of UN’s assistance in Afghanistan and East Timor to support transitional administrations.

Press Officer (Italy)
Filippo di Robilant has spent most of his career in public service. As a director of the Italian Communications’ Authority from 1999 to 2003 he has dealt extensively with international best practices in media regulation. From 1995 to 1998 he was European Commission spokesman for Humanitarian Aid, participating in a number of international peace implementation processes and in field missions including Afghanistan. From 1983 to 1991 he was private secretary to the Italian Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in charge of development cooperation.

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