MANILA, Philippines – Damaso G. Magbual, national council member of election watchdog National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), was elected the new chairman of the Global Network of Domestic Election Monitors (GNDEM) during its meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 8 to 11.

Magbual will now be heading the election monitors international network comprised of 220 member organizations from 84 countries and other region-based monitoring bodies in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.

“I am honored,” Magbual said in a telephone interview with Rappler. According to him, his election is a recognition of NAMFREL and the Philippines, which he said is the birthplace of domestic election monitoring.

The Philippines will be having its next presidential elections in May 2016.

NAMFREL, the Legal Network for Truthful Elections, and the Institute for Political Economic Reforms are among the GNDEM member organizations from the Philippines.

As chairman, Magbual said he is tasked to coordinate the different activities of the member organizations across the globe. He will also be presiding over the annual conference of GNDEM’s regional heads.

Magbual, who is also NAMFREL’s membership committee chairperson, is concurrently serving as chairman of the Asian Network of Free Elections, a network of election monitoring  organizations in Asia based in Bangkok, Thailand.

‘Gold standard’

According to a press statement, GNDEM shares “state of the art” documents to member organizations through its electronic resource center, the “most sought [after]” research material on the best practices during the election period.

One of GNDEM’s flagship projects is the development of the Declaration of Global Principles for Non-partisan Election Observation and Monitoring by Citizen Organizations, which was launched in the United Nations on April 2012.

The Declaration is the gold standard use by independent, non-partisan, and systematic observation of elections by domestic observers worldwide.

Magbual represented Asia in the Declaration’s Drafting Committee. – Rappler.com