Adopted on 20 July 2015, Pretoria, Republic of South Africa 8.3 9. MANDATE OF SEOMs 8.3.2 The mandate of the SEOM shall be to determine the adherence of the Member State holding elections to the relevant provisions of the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections; 8.3.3 The deployment of the SEOM does not preclude bilateral arrangements between the SADC Member States. RIGHTS OF SADC ELECTION OBSERVERS 9.1. The Rights of the SADC Electoral Observation Missions (SOEMs) are based on the SADC experience and the AU Guidelines for Electoral Observation and Monitoring Missions. Accordingly the following shall be the Rights and of the SADC Election Observers: 9.1.1 Freedom of movement within the host country; 9.1.2 Timely accreditation of SEOMs, enabling individual observers to conduct their work in the Member State holding elections; 9.1.3 Freedom to communicate with, and have unimpeded and unrestricted access to the EMB or appropriate electoral authority and all other election administrators. 9.1.4 Unhindered access to, and freedom to communicate with the media, subject to section 10.1.13 of the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections; 9.1.5 Free access to all legislation and regulations governing the electoral process and environment; 9.1.6 Free access to electoral registers or voters’ rolls; as well as all information pertaining to electoral processes, including any electronic and biotechnological data; 9.1.7 Unimpeded and unrestricted access to all polling stations and counting centres; 9.1.8 Freedom to communicate with all competing political parties, candidates, other political associations and organisations, and civil society organisations; 9.1.9 Freedom to communicate with voters without prejudice to the electoral law proscribing such communication in order to protect the secrecy of the vote; - 11 -