The European Union observed the first free general elections in post-apartheid South Africa in April 1994, the first to be hold with universal adult suffrage. Millions queued in lines over a 3 day voting period and 19 726 579 votes were counted on 20 millions of potential voters.
This observation was one of the first decisions of EU Common Foreign and Security Policy after the establishment of the EU competence by the Maastricht Treaty. Before 2000, election observations were deployed and formated on an ad hoc political basis.
Precise criteria whether to deploy or not, as well as detailled working structure and methodology were defined in the EC Communication COM2000(199).
