Credible Electoral Process: The Core of African Emerging Democracy

By Jennifer Kargbo, Abdalla Hamdok and Denis Kadima

The quality of an election constitutes one of the determinants for deepening democratic governance. Although elections do play a critical role for the sustainability of democratic governance, democracy cannot be reduced purely to elections. Various other political processes play an equally important role for democracy to exist and be sustained, including respect for human rights, citizen participation, constitutionalism, rule of law, separation of powers and checks and balances and equal distribution of the national wealth. Taking cognisant of these broader dimensions of democracy, elections nonetheless can be the primary inter-linkage between representative democracy and political accountability. High quality elections have a great potential for adding substantial value to accountable governance and the realisation of citizen's expectations.

While many countries that constitute the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have embraced multi-party systems and hold regular elections, the quality of these elections differ from one country to another. Low quality elections may even become a political liability to democratisation itself. There is therefore a critical need to focus attention of key election stakeholders to the task of improving the quality of elections in the region for the purpose of sustainable democratic governance.

While elections are supposed to anchor sustainable democracy, in some countries elections have become a cost to democracy itself. Elections become a political asset to a democracy if they institutionalize democratic culture and practice. But if elections, instead of institutionalizing democratic culture, fuel political instability, then they become a political liability for democracy. To what extent do electoral systems and institutions turn elections into political assets and not liabilities?

Some of the salient areas to pay attention to in order to improve electoral quality for the deepening of democratic governance in Southern Africa are the following: (i) to ensure that the legal frameworks are right and proper; (ii) ensuring proper conduct by political parties, electoral commission, supporters at pre-election, polling day and post-election phases; (iii) addressing the cost of elections and assess sustainability of elections given internal and external resources available to the election management bodies (EMBs); (iv) evaluate the degree of citizen participation in elections and share strategies for increasing public education and interest in elections; (v) promote a culture of constructive management of election disputes for purposes of maintaining political stability and peace; and (vi) encouraging EMBs to move more and more towards the utilisation of information communications technology for the improved quality of elections.

Broadly, stakeholders must pay attention to key areas to improve elections in the region.

First, it is the election administration , a process, which is as critical as electoral outcome itself. How are elections organised in Southern Africa? How are they managed? What regulatory frameworks are in place to ensure the credibility of the electoral process and the legitimacy of its outcomes? These questions speak to the democratic nature of electoral governance in the region and the extent to which key democracy stakeholders have confidence in the electoral administration and institutions. The more the stakeholders have confidence in the process and its outcome, the more do elections contribute positively to democracy and political stability. Conversely, the more the stakeholders exhibit low levels of confidence/or lack of confidence in the process and its outcome, the more do elections become highly contested and in some instances igniting conflict and political instability. All these issues are linked to the quality of elections. The quality of elections ranges from the administrative aspects of the process throughout all the stages and the management of the elections. With regard to the management of elections, the EMBs have come to play a critical role since the on-set of democratic transitions of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The ECA's African Governance Report (AGR) and the deliberations that took place during the Fourth African Development Forum (ADF IV) in October 2004 noted numerous challenges facing the administration and management of elections in Africa in general and in the Southern African countries in particular. The ADF IV participants noted with satisfaction the emergence of better electoral laws and procedures and the significant enhancement of competitiveness of the elections since the 1990s. At the same time, they highlighted acute challenges in election administration and management, particularly with regard to whether the legal and administrative apparatus currently in place in the sub-region is sufficient to guarantee democratic electoral outcomes. They raised a number of questions, including whether electoral commissions be made up of government appointees or selected from broad segments and interests of society. They further pondered over the appropriate tenure of electoral commissioners and how the electoral commissions should be funded.

These and other concerns were further supported by the views of the general public that were captured in the AGR . For example, the results from the AGR Survey regarding the legitimacy of electoral authorities show that d espite the fact that 57.6 per cent of respondents were of the opinion that political parties accept the legitimacy of the electoral authority as a manager of the electoral process, there was still a fairly strong perception in the Southern African sub-region that EMBs are far from being legitimate.

Contributing to these views is the inadequate public funding that goes to the EMBs, unattractive remuneration and poor conditions of service, and the manner in which the government appoints the heads of the EMBs, and hence the EMBs' perceived lack of independence.

It should be noted that a number of guidelines, norms and standards for the effective and efficient management of elections in Southern Africa developed by various institutions in the region now exist and are very clear on best practice in this area. These include:

•  The 2001 SADC-PF Norms and Standards for Elections in the SADC Region;

•  The 2003 EISA/ECF Principles for Election Management, Monitoring and Observation (PEMMO); and

•  The 2004 SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections.

The second area is electoral system design , which reflects a political history of Southern Africa and the concomitant political culture, and which has had an overbearing imprint and impact on the nature of electoral systems that individual states have adopted since the independence period. A majority of the Southern African states were under the British colonial rule and upon independence they adopted the Westminster constitution and political arrangement that go with it. It should then be noted that very few Southern African states have thus far taken a deliberate effort to adopt an electoral system of their own choice involving internal popular consultations. It is now common cause that the electoral systems adopted by Southern African states are not a product of a broad based internal debate in which citizens had a chance to make submissions on the kind of system they wanted to see adopted in their country. Most electoral systems, electoral laws, electoral institutions and constitutions that govern elections in SADC countries were inherited from colonialism. Where limited changes have been introduced, they were hardly ever debated and in most cases they were partial and cosmetic rather than being comprehensive and substantive.

For an electoral system to add value to democracy, it must enhance accountability of the elected representatives to their constituency while at the same time ensuring broader representation of key political forces in the representative bodies. In this way a political system becomes more inclusive and participatory and accords the rulers legitimacy to govern. SADC states must make deliberate efforts of addressing election-related conflicts and war by, among other things, reforming their electoral systems accordingly. In order to help define the vision and objectives for electoral reform process, Reynolds Reilly and Ellis isolate ten (10) key criteria that could prove useful to guide the process namely:

•  Ensuring a representative parliament and inclusive government;

•  Making elections accessible and meaningful;

•  Providing incentives for conciliation and constructive management of conflicts;

•  Facilitating stable, transparent and efficient government;

•  Holding the government accountable and responsive;

•  Holding the elected representatives accountable and responsive;

•  Encouraging “cross-cutting” political parties;

•  Promoting legislative opposition and oversight;

•  Making the election process cost-effective and sustainable; and

•  Taking into account international norms and standards (2005:9-14).

The above criteria are not meant to be prescriptive and applied by all countries. But they are a guide for reforms. Countries are not compelled to consider all of them. The historical, socio-economic and political contexts of each country plays a critical role in terms of choosing which primary criteria propel the reform project. Again, without being prescriptive in terms of which electoral system is better suited for Southern African countries which have their own peculiar historical, socio-economic and political contexts, it is only fair to propose that many countries need to undergo electoral reforms taking the relevant criteria into account. Such a process will then guide each country to an appropriate electoral system for deepening its democratic governance.