21 Aug 2013

Elections with integrity have never been as important as they are today, according to former president and member of the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security.

Speaking at the launch of the Global Commission report in Gaborone on August 20, Mr Festus Mogae said pressure was mounting on democracies, both established and new, to show that they were still relevant to citizens’ concerns and wellbeing.

Mr Mogae, however, regretted that elections had recently been used by autocratic governments to wrap themselves in a veneer of democratic legitimacy, while in some countries, elections had been used for wrong reasons to achieve and gain state power and legitimacy, which otherwise would not be gained.

In other countries, he said elections were flawed with violence, killings and displacement of people. Meanwhile, Mr Mogae said the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security had identified five major challenges to elections with integrity.

The challenges, he noted, included building the rule of law, creating professional, competent electoral management bodies (EMBs), creating institutions and norms of multiparty competition, removing legal, administrative, political, economic and social barriers to universal and equal political participation as well as regulating uncontrolled, undisclosed and opaque political finance.

He further said the commission report had also highlighted challenges of the winner-takes-it-all mentality whereby elections were perceived to be a contest in which the winner gained wide ranging political and economic benefits and the losers did not get anything. He said, in some instances, they might even face the threat of persecution, adding that this situation must be avoided.

He further stated that the commission had also noted with interest increasing calls for political system in which the losers of an election had an incentive to participate in future polls. He further highlighted that where the electoral systems were highly centralised, candidates and parties that lost elections risked being shut out completely from political and the allocation of public goods.

“In pointing out the national actions that can be taken to overcome these challenges and to promote elections with integrity, the report states that the integrity of elections must be home grown and locally protected,” he said.

In addition, Mr Mogae observed that electoral and political integrity were the joint responsibility of national leaders, civic groups and political parties. In regard to this, the Global Commission proposed a detailed set of recommendations aimed at the national and international levels.    

The commission, which was a joint initiative of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) and the Kofi Annan Foundation was appointed primarily to address concerns and many others and to point to solutions as well as to consider how to promote and protect the integrity of elections.

The commission intended to launch the report in other Southern African countries, especially those which are going to hold general elections next year just like Botswana and had also been translated into several languages and it has already presented before the African Union (AU).

Local journalists also had the chance to be grilled on guidelines on media coverage of elections in the SADC region after the launch of the report which was done in conjunction with Botswana Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). Ends