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This paper examines how the practice of international election observation in the Commonwealth Caribbean was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many countries were faced with the decision on whether to conduct or delay elections during the pandemic. Between March 2020 and June 2022, 10 out of 12 Commonwealth Caribbean countries held elections. All these countries, except for Barbados, have had their elections observed by at least one regional or international organization during the last two decades. The closure of borders and the various quarantine requirements had practical implications for maintaining this trend during the pandemic. Most countries that regularly invite international observers did not have their pandemic held elections observed. This paper considers the reasons for the absence of observers in some elections and explores the adjustments observer groups have had to make during the last two years. The discussion also explores how Caribbean countries were able to indicate their commitment to holding free and fair elections in the absence of observers. For the countries that had observers, the discussion examines how these missions navigated issues of cost, shorter invitation periods, challenges in international travel, the recruitment of suitable observers and local pandemic protocols and conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The political reform of 2003, has been the most important in electoral matters made after the 1991 Constitution. The phenomena of "microempresas electorales", "operación avispa" and personalization, brought about a need to reform and reorganize the system and political parties with two fundamental changes: the electoral formula and the electoral barrier. Since the adoption of the reform there have been four elections in Colombia, two regional (Assembly and Council in 2003 and 2007) and two national (Senate and House of Representatives in 2006 and 2010), which have had mechanical effects on the party system at both the national and sub-national levels, and have "reorganized" the political forces in each legislature. The overall objective of this paper is to observe the effects of the reforms on the national party system in both the first (2006) and second (2010) wave of elections, specifically about the representativeness of the system, taking into account their context and political situation. We conclude that the change in the electoral formula and the imposition of the electoral barrier managed to reorganize the parties and therefore political competition without affecting system proportionality, as its detractors had claimed. Although this aspect had no significant variation, factors such as electoral density lead to other questions over the Colombian electoral system such as the necessity (or not) to think about a new reform that points to a change in the electoral districts and therefore in the levels of representation of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the determinants of legislative action; furthermore it is a study of the Colombian Senate from 2006-2010 where the goal is to discuss the factors that influence the initiation of national bills. In Colombia, the political reforms of 1991, 2003 and 2009 have sought to overcome the particularistic legislation and transform in some way, political representation. In this sense, we estimate the propensity of legislators to initiate national bills as a function of the party structure, the party genesis including the existence of closed lists and seniority. The analysis suggests that the regional anchor of the traditional parties, departmental chiefs and the election system have discouraged national proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]