Description

Electoral assistance means preparing, conducting, monitoring an election and observing to ensure it is free and fair.

Objectives

Electoral assistance and reform aim to support acceptably free and fair elections by strengthening political parties and institutions, providing voter education, and detecting fraud during the electoral process.

Expected outcome or impact

Electoral reform should increase the representation of previously insufficiently represented ethnic, regional or political groups in government at the national, state or provincial, and local levels. With free and fair elections, executives and legislators are selected, held accountable and legitimized.

Relationship to conflict prevention and mitigation

Elections are a legitimate means for power to change hands in a democracy; the lack of a participatory system of government is at the heart of many of the intrastate conflicts in the world today. Post-conflict, long-term peace requires that elections enable all members of society, without discrimination, to participate fully in political, civil, economic, social and cultural life, with governments reflecting fair and diverse representation of the population.

Assisting and reforming an election can be effective in preventing or mitigating violent conflict in a deeply polarized society. "Legitimate government reconciliation and peaceful democratic transition can emerge from the electoral process if there are incentives for cooperation and accommodation that bridge cleavages among different ethnic groups." On the downside, elections can exacerbate tensions, encourage uncompromising attitudes and tempt the majority to stress outvoting members of the minority rather than attempts to reach agreement with them.

Elections in Greater Horn countries typically involve fragmented political parties few with significant and stable bases of support, especially outside major cities. Most political parties are dependent on a few notable personalities or a shared ethnic identity (or both). Political institutionalization, both in general and of the party system, "...is strongly related to the persistence and stability of democracy." International supervision of elections can help prevent or mitigate conflict by offering external, unbiased observers to ensure that local electoral laws are respected.

Implementation

Organizers

Participants

Those citizens authorized to vote according to their government’s constitution and electoral law participate in elections.

Activities

Electoral assistance and reform. Activities by which the electoral process can be reformed or assisted include the following.

· Offer technical assessments of the electoral process in particular countries.

· Provide on-site technical assistance for electoral reform in matters such as voter registry and design of electoral laws and administration.

· Recommend changes to the country’s electoral framework. Provide expert, independent recommendations for reforming electoral codes and reorganizing electoral procedures to break deadlocks and win the confidence of both government and opposition.

· Detect fraud using methods such as parallel vote tabulation whereby independent monitors report the results from individual polling stations directly to a nonpartisan watch group, usually assisted by international observers. Denounce fraud when discovered.

· Assist parties and civic organizations with civic and voter education, registration, communication, and poll watching.

· Monitor, support, and strengthen the mechanics of the election process in emerging democracies.

· Train poll workers.

· Offer assistance to election monitoring and administration by training local people and bringing in external election monitors.

· Promote (re)districting to incorporate different ethnic groups into distinct districts. This can be effective in reducing ethnic conflict and chances that majority rule will override minority rights. If possible, regional and national electoral success should be made dependent on support from multiple ethnic groups to reduce the prospects of mainstream politicians perceiving a political advantage in adopting extremist positions.

Redistricting is not a panacea. When electoral districts are small and homogeneous, electoral competition may not resolve conflict because electoral systems diminish the diversity of representation: each election consolidates political issues, causes parties to compromise more extreme views and reduces the national agenda to the most prominent issues, with the result that non-dominant group issues disappear from the national agenda, non-dominant groups abandon the electoral and party process and promote the expression of their interests through alternative processes such as violence.

· Create incentives for cooperation and accommodation in the electoral process that bridge cleavages among different groups. · Share comparative studies from other countries. Transfer information on election systems in other countries to benefit new democracies. Provide knowledge on alternative political and institutional arrangements and on lessons learned from democratic transitions and consolidation.

· Organize the election to guarantee minority participation, thereby promoting minority parties’ and communities’ confidence. Measures include proportionality, reserving seats in the legislature, and requiring that winning presidential candidates receive a significant percentage of the nationwide vote.

· Conduct internationally supervised elections as an alternative to direct talks or direct mediation of ethnic conflict." <<International observers can help verify the election results to increase the credibility and legitimacy of the declared victor in a polarized contest; the presence of international observers can help to verify the election results.

· Train election personnel in election techniques and procedures for registration, voting, ballot counting, and complaint adjudication.

Developing political parties. "Political parties remain the indispensable instruments for fashioning diverse identities, interests, and preferences into laws, appropriations, and governments." Party-building includes:

· Training party practitioners in campaign organization, use of the mass media and candidate recruitment.

· Training in techniques of membership recruitment, volunteer organization, local branch development, fundraising, public opinion polling, interest group liaison, policy research, message development, and constituency contact.

· Education about alternative electoral laws and the different incentives and party systems they generate.

· Assistance to overhaul and democratize established parties that have become weak, corrupt, and unresponsive.

· Establishing competitive primaries to select candidates.

· Improving communication between national party headquarters and local branches.

Cost considerations

Political party development requires a heavy investment of education and training in how to form, build and run an organization democratically. Other frequent needs are equipment, infrastructure, project funding, and general operational support.

Other resource considerations

Set-up time

It can take months to years to plan and implement an electoral assistance or reform program.

Timeframe

to see results

Once real change occurs in the electoral system and political parties, the impact on conflict prevention and mitigation is most likely of long duration if other factors like political will are in place.

Conflict context

Stages of conflict

Election reform is most needed—and most difficult to achieve—during a political crisis, during violent conflict, or in the immediate aftermath of a civil conflict.

Type of conflict

Electoral reform and development of political parties are appropriate in cases of civil conflict in which certain ethnic or political groups are inadequately represented.

Causes of conflict

Electoral reform addresses the structural causes of conflict that are manifested in minorities’ inappropriate representation and participation in the political system.

Prerequisites

"Elections of any kind work only if they are seen as a legitimate way to resolve disputes." Observing elections requires impartial arbiters whom all sides can trust. Electoral reform requires political will to succeed. The international community may encourage commitment with sanctions and conditionality, especially if international actors act in a unified way.

Past practice

Outside the Greater Horn

Malaysia. Following independence, the Malays and Chinese established a joint consultative executive, the Alliance Party. This coalition met before each national election to agree to a common electoral slate, while the political parties preserved their distinct organizational identities and power basis.

Mexico. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) provided support to Mexico’s Civic Alliance in 1994, "...whose unprecedented election-monitoring efforts—compelling more balanced media treatment, fielding some 12,000 Mexican observers, and organizing an independent ‘quick count’ of the vote—resulted in the least fraudulent presidential election Mexico has had in decades."

South Africa. IRI, NDI, and others sponsored the highly successful South African Election Support Project that assisted parties and civic organizations with voter education, registration, communication, and poll watching for the April 1994 elections.

Cambodia. The UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was successful in preventing campaign violence and election malpractice through its one and a half year presence: "almost 90 percent of voters turned out to the polls, in a surprisingly peaceful and free election." Its functions included electoral administration and monitoring.

Other examples. USAID has used its democratization projects in Africa to effectively monitor and assist with the conduct of multiparty elections, particularly in Mozambique where USAID assistance was crucial under difficult post-civil war circumstances.

Evaluation

Strengths

"Election monitoring often stimulates independent civic efforts, because of the large numbers of domestic monitors who must be trained and deployed."

"Few instruments of democracy promotion have had as immediately and clearly invisible an impact as international election observing." The use of international election monitors has helped African administrations develop election procedures. "They have served important functions such as training elections officials, advising on methods of registration, and serving as neutral umpires during elections." An election commission can help to increase transparency and ensure that elections are administered impartially, reducing the potential for violent conflict.

Weaknesses

Free and fair elections are too often equated with democracy itself.

Unless consciously organized to promote inter-group cooperation, elections can trigger an escalation of group fear and tensions. Anxious over their security and general well-being in the event of an electoral defeat, ethnic and religious identity groups can react angrily, even violently, to any presumed act of gerrymandering, "rigging", or vote stealing that seems to put them at a disadvantage. Ethnic discord can be increased by appeals to exclusive ethnic interests during an electoral period.

There is widespread criticism and doubt over whether international election monitors can effectively judge whether elections are free and fair. Observers can render adequate judgments about the overall freedom and fairness of the election only if they begin to assess administrative preparations, train monitors, prepare for election day, and observe the election campaign or signs of official intimidation, lack of access to the media, and misuse of government resources by the incumbent party well in advance of the voting (as much as six months).

Election observing requires political will from the international community, acting in a unified manner, to succeed. Election observing has failed to advance democratization in some recent cases (presidential elections in Cameroon and Kenya, for instance) because of divisions among international actors. Even if international observers can ensure that voting is free and fair, dependence on foreign observation does not help sustain the system; foreign observation may be necessary for the transition period. "The presence of international observers has two contradictory effects. On the one hand, it helps end the fighting and pushes the transition to democracy. On the other hand, by sharing the responsibility for organizing a new civil order and elections with local actors, the international presence can hinder the process by which contenders reach peace by themselves."

Lessons learned

A key factor in elections is the role of the opposition and the extent to which it is free to campaign, and the nature of its participation in the process. Freedom to campaign depends on factors such as a free press, adequate funds and mobility, and public reactions to opposition policies. Another key is the opposition’s reaction to defeat.

It is important that Africans be trained in observing and monitoring their own elections and in the procedures for efficient voter registration.

All contending parties should be involved in and participate in every stage of the electoral process.

References

and resources

Rafael Lopez-Pintor, "Reconciliation Elections: A Post-Cold War Experience," Chapter 2 in Krishna Kumar (ed.), Rebuilding Societies After Civil War: Critical Roles for International Assistance, Boulder, CO, Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1997.

Larry Garber and Clark Gibson, Review of United Nations Electoral Assistance, 1992-1993, UNDP Project INT/91/033, August 1993.

Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, Free and Fair Elections: International Law and Practice, Geneva, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 1994.