Posted on May 11, 2014 by letters2pppapers
Conducting
a fair election is never easy (witness the dispute over the 2000
presidential election in the US). But it is particularly difficult in
poor countries, and especially in poor countries that have recently
emerged from, or are still trying to emerge from, conflicts.
But
despite these common difficulties, the elections in these countries are
evaluated according to quite different standards by rich-country
politicians who have appointed themselves as international electoral
supreme courts. Consider the following examples.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan
held presidential and council elections on April 5. For the previous
presidential election in 2009, there were more than 1000 international
observers. This time there were almost none, largely because of fear of
attack by reactionary militias opposed to any sort of election.
The
US National Democratic Institute withdrew all of its international
staff, leaving only 80-100 local employees to monitor eight provinces.
The International Republican Institute had no monitors.
The
Asian Network for Free Elections announced that it was deploying only
seven or eight observers, all of whom would remain in the capital. The
International Foundation for Electoral Systems, which since 2002 has
been assisting with training in things like voter registration and poll
worker skills, was reported to have sent all its advisers out of the
country before the election. Democracy International said it was keeping
16 observers in Afghanistan, but they would not go out on election day.
A
15-member mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in
Europe was reduced to seven after a militia attack killed an election
observer. The European Union sent 16 observers, but the head of the
group announced that they would not go out during the election.
Even
international media largely avoided sending reporters, partly out of
fear of attack and partly because of an editorial focus on Syria and
Ukraine.
The
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan announced that
monitoring relied “entirely” on local monitors. But while the number of
Afghan observers was reported as more than 200,000, most of them were
not neutral but were official or unofficial supporters of particular
parties or candidates.
Only
about a third of Afghans who voted were women. The Free and Fair
Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA) reported prior to the election that
women also faced many obstacles to being candidates. Of 272 female
provincial council candidates it interviewed, 67 said they were
intimated through “threatening phone calls and night letters from a
number of MPs, members of Provincial Councils and insurgent groups” as
well as “hate speeches and negative preach[ing] by Mullahs, tribal
elders, district governors and some illegal armed groups”. The women
candidates reported that some electoral commission staff discriminated
among candidates “based on gender, race, regional and political
affiliation”.
A
second FEFA report prior to the election criticised the electoral
commission for a lack of voter education activities, resulting in many
districts having a “significantly low level of awareness of electoral
process and electoral timeline”. FEFA also noted that the most common
violation of electoral laws (56%) was candidates making use of
government resources. The organisation observed 123 campaign events and
noted “violations including threats, abuse of public resources and
negative campaign[ing] in 26”. (The above information on Afghanistan
election conditions is taken from
http://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/under-fire-the-status-of-the-2014-election-observation.)
About 58% of eligible voters actually cast a ballot.
The
day after the election, all the problems were forgotten. US President
Barack Obama praised it, saying that it “represent[s] another important
milestone in Afghans taking full responsibility for their country as the
United States and our partners draw down our forces … These elections
are critical to securing Afghanistan’s democratic future …”
British
Foreign Secretary William Hague said, “It is a great achievement for
the Afghan people that so many voters, men and women, young and old,
have turned out in such large numbers …”
The
UN Security Council issued an effusive statement full of praise such as
“The members of the Security Council applaud the Afghan-led efforts to
prepare for and hold these elections and recognize the important role of
the Afghan electoral institutions … as well as the support provided by
international partners.”
Officials from the EU, India, Canada and NATO (and probably others) were similarly enthusiastic.
Iraq
Iraq
held national elections on April 30. Sixty percent of eligible voters
cast a ballot. During the time from the new year to the election,
approximately 1000 Iraqis per month were killed in political violence.
If there were significant numbers of international observers present for
the voting, I have not been able to find a reference to this.
After
casting his vote, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared: “Our victory
is ensured, but we still need to determine how big this victory will
be.”
Maliki
had reason for confidence: a record of coming out on top even when the
voters prefer someone else. In December 2005, parliamentary elections
gave a plurality to the United Iraqi Alliance, which nominated Ibrahim
al-Jaafari as prime minister. However, factional divisions forced
Jaafari out in April 2006. After the four leading replacement candidates
were interviewed by the CIA, the US ambassador endorsed Maliki, and he
was installed as prime minister.
In
June of the same year, the International Committee to Protect
Journalists wrote to Maliki, complaining about his government’s
“disturbing pattern of restrictions on the press” and “imprisonment,
intimidation, and censorship of journalists”. Maliki responded in August
by banning television stations from showing bloodshed in the country.
In
the 2010 parliamentary election, Maliki’s party came second in the
vote. Not an insoluble problem: in backroom negotiations that took more
than nine months, it was eventually agreed that Maliki should continue
in the job. Two months later, a spokesperson declared that, to encourage
democracy, Maliki would not be a candidate in the 2014 election (it
seems he changed his mind).
“Neither
Maliki, nor other candidates, spent much campaigning time trying to
establish their governance credentials with war-weary voters”, Martin
Chulov reported in the 30 April Guardian. He also noted:
“Already
disenfranchised since the ousting of Saddam Hussein 11 years ago, which
led to Iraq’s long-marginalised Shia majority taking over, Sunni Iraqis
claim this election has failed to re-absorb them into the body politic,
or to share power.
“Sunni
communities in Anbar and in some provinces south of Baghdad say Iraq’s
Shia-led military makes little distinction between them and insurgents. A
Maliki-led crackdown on civil protests in Anbar last December
exacerbated their fears.
“‛What
is the point of voting,’ said Ali Mansour, a Ramadi resident. ‛All we
would be doing is giving legitimacy to Maliki. He is ensuring that the
country will be torn apart.’”
The
US secretary of state, John Kerry (who doesn’t live in Iraq),
disagreed. He said that, by voting, those Iraqis who did vote sent “a
powerful rebuke to the violent extremists who have tried to thwart the
democratic process and sow discord in Iraq and throughout the region”.
(Several
days later, the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Osama al-Nujefi,
presented the US ambassador with his concerns about a large number of
complaints regarding mishandling of ballot boxes. Nujefi also said that
security forces had prevented observers from entering a number of
polling stations.)
The
UN Security Council backed Kerry in applauding: “The members of the
Security Council welcome the holding of timely parliamentary elections
in Iraq on 30 April, and commend the people of Iraq for demonstrating
their commitment to a peaceful, inclusive and democratic political
process.”
(Information for people who are not used to reading diplomatic weasel words: the statement did not say that the Iraqi elections were “peaceful, inclusive and democratic”. It said that the act of voting indicated that Iraqis would like a
“peaceful, inclusive and democratic” political process. I hope they
will get that wish some day, but in the meantime the Security Council
has an escape clause if it is revealed that the election results were
grotesquely rigged.)
Cambodia
In
the National Assembly elections in Cambodia on July 28, 2013, more than
68% of eligible voters participated (more than in Afghanistan or Iraq).
This election had many many fewer international observers, 292, than
previous elections. This is presumably for one or both of two reasons:
(1) confidence among previous observers that the elections would be
conducted fairly, or (2) the campaign by opposition leader Sam Rainsy
urging that there be no international observers for this election.
There
were, however, very many national observers. First of all, there were
representatives of the parties competing in the election. The NEC
accredited 18,012 representatives from the opposition Cambodian National
Rescue Party (CNRP), plus 14,839 representatives from Funcinpec and
lesser numbers from smaller parties. Later, at their request, the NEC
added another 9931 observers from the Sam Rainsy Party and 4780
observers from the Human Rights Party, even though those parties had
earlier merged into the CNRP. The main opposition party alone thus had
nearly 33,000 observers at the country’s 19,000 polling stations. As
well, election-monitoring NGOs, most of them hostile to the governing
party, had more than 40,000 accredited observers – an average of more
than two per polling station.
All
of these observers were allowed to be present during the counting of
votes. At every single polling station, all of the observers signed the
official forms certifying that the votes had been counted and recorded
accurately. At each subsequent stage of compiling the votes, the
totalling was similarly observed by and endorsed by independent and/or
pro-opposition supporters.
Strangely,
however, I can’t recall the US or the EU or the UN issuing any ringing
endorsements of the Cambodian elections. I think that Obama’s third
undersecretary for colonial mismanagement might have indicated that his
boss was pleased that there hadn’t been a lot of people killed on voting
day, but that was about it. (And the statement didn’t mention that the
small amount of election-day violence was caused by opposition
supporters.) Cambodian opposition leaders continue circling the globe,
telling gullible politicians that they were cheated out of victory but
refusing to specify the details of where they think their
representatives signed inaccurate vote totals.
What should we conclude?
Given
these quite different standards that some governments apply to
elections in countries like Cambodia, what are we to conclude? One
possible conclusion would be that the leaders of these countries are not
really mainly concerned about democracy, but mostly about how well or
badly poor-country governments are carrying out the wishes of those
rich-country leaders.
By Allen Myers