New Tactics Meet New People

Photo CC: Seb L. 

A car mechanic in Southern Ghana shows an inked index finger, evidence he has voted in the presidential election. On December 28th, 2008, Ghanians held the second round of presidential elections which saw former vice-president, and opposition candidate John Atta Mills win a majority of the vote, and being elected to a four-year term.

"It's not the votes that count. It's who counts the votes."  — Josef Stalin

As I watch intently with the rest of the world the inauguration speech of US president Barak Obama, I am reminded that an authentic electoral process can signify major political change. After years of inauspicious results in this part of the world, I had almost forgotten about the power of genuine elections.

I hear the words. I am moved. Where does the radical shift come from?

I have a hunch that change did not come as much from up there, as it did from down here. That's where I saw the winds sweep ferociously for years, before the leaves finally ruffled and dropped.

In the ruthless contest for political power, elections are still the instrument of choice for peaceful transition in the nominal figureheads, and sometimes actual direction, of a country. When the energy of all those yearning for a new order is harnessed, elections offer a powerful avenue for change.

Precisely because of that, barriers will at times be dragged across the avenue. Crooks and cheaters at the helm of the state will use any means necessary to keep their grip on the top job. They will, if they can, steal elections through devious schemes. Take the tactic of the "Carousel", for example (video link below).

Opposition parties can be denied access to financial resources and fair coverage in the media. Voter registration and lists can be manipulated in dozens of ways. Election districts can be redrawn to the ruler's advantage (a tactic called gerrymandering). Ballot boxes can be stuffed or "lost". Opponents can be poisoned, tortured, or killed. Voters can be intimidated, or bought. Election reports can be rewritten, censored or distorted. Despised regimes have become experts in the ways of manipulating and stealing an election.

Luckily, there are also experts on the other side. Over the last few decades, human rights activists, NGO's and independent civil society organizations have developed a set of sophisticated methods to monitor the quality of the electoral process, and report on its fairness. Election monitoring has evolved techniques that rest on extensive networks of trained observers, making use of new technologies. All these have changed the game completely.

When needed, even before an election is declared, teams of election monitors start planning to set up a monitoring structure. Legal issues are researched and fair rules are advocated. Media coverage is monitored for balance. Volunteers are trained first by the hundreds, and then by the thousands.

On the day of the elections, masses of volunteers are disseminated to monitor local polling stations. They oversee the voting process, the tabulation and transmission of results, often conducting exit polls, to check against the accuracy of official tallies. Reporting used to be a cumbersome process conducted by fax or by phone. Now, SMS can be sent and fed into a computer database, offering a much faster and more reliable system.

The real impact of election monitoring can sometimes be felt days, weeks, or even months after a controversial election, as reports of observed results, of violent incidents and manipulations, and official bias feed mass protest movements that make the country ungovernable. As Maria Stephen and Erica Chenoweth report in Why Civil Resistance Works, election monitoring is one of five key policy elements proven to support the success rates of civil resistance movements in support of democracy.

Back in the US, during the last elections, some of my friends were worried that Barak Obama would be cheated from his victory. They invoked the Supreme Court decision to cancel the Florida recount, which allowed for the narrow election of George W. Bush in 2000. They raised voting machines controversies and voter registration issues in Ohio, surrounding Bush's 2004 reelection. But these fears did not materialize.

So how much does Obama bring a wind of change? The recent elections sure blew away a stale, rancid old guard. I like to think that Obama was in fact carried by the united breath of many. He is the feather that fluttered to the top, as millions blew in unison.

But let's not forget that any president can only be as good, as the engaged ordinary citizens compel him to be. To keep the ideals up there, a committed citizenry will have to go on gusting and puffing. But for now, a big sigh of relief will do, as the world takes heed of the distance travelled. 

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Philippe Duhamel

interTactica — a liberation blog

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Two fraudulent tactics used to skew election results in Ukraine, in 2004. 

Excerpt from the movie "Orange Revolution", part of the A Force More Powerful series. The 2004 Ukrainian presidential election was marred by massive corruption, voter intimidation and direct electoral fraud. These prompted presidential candiate Yushchenko and his
supporters to refuse to recognize the results. After 13 days of mass protests in the capital and other cities, the election results were overturned by the Ukrainian Supreme Court, and a re-run was ordered. These events became known as the Orange Revolution.