"In view of the leading role of South Africa... a number of countries in the region are looking at us to stage a successful election," the EISA's election manager Sa Ngidi said on Monday.
She said if this year's general elections went smoothly, it would be the second time the country had successfully completed them on its own. In 1994 the international community largely helped conduct and monitor the election.
"This (2004) election can establish South Africa as a country which can at least manage its affairs in terms of the elections," said Ngidi, highlighting that with elections planned in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola, these two countries in particular were looking to "take lessons" from South Africa.
She said 15 EISA election monitors -- all from the Southern African Development Community -- would be deployed on Friday to Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape to monitor the elections.
Ngidi said the teams would meet interested parties, including the Independent Electoral Commission, civil society, the media and political parties, in each region to get "various perspectives of election issues".
Referring to the controversial Zimbabwe election which kept President Robert Mugabe in power, and which elicited much debate on whether or not it was "free and fair", Ngidi said the EISA and the Electoral Commissions Forum had adopted a 30-page document to help guide observers on what to look for in elections when determining they were free and fair.
The Electoral Commission Forum consists of the 14 IECs in the SADC region.
Asked about the adequacy of the document, Ngidi said: "It is very elaborate and extremely thorough," adding that it looked for example at the role of state security forces during elections, voter fraud, the secrecy of the vote, and whether voting stations were free of violence and intimidation.
Ngidi said the EISA would compile a report and submit it to the IEC once the elections had run their course - Sapa.
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