Election Assistance in Post-Conflict
Societies
Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our
democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this
country.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
OVERVIEW
The right to fair elections is a basic human right, yet it is one that not many people in the world have
access to. History in so many countries, including those that are more developed than others, consists of
certain problems with unfair elections. The most problematic setting for this scenario is in post-conflict
societies. After a conflict has taken place, the governance of a society is very much vulnerable to being
overthrown or overtaken, due to the government facing a loss of power fast and easily. As such, several
steps must be taken in countries all over the world to ensure something like this does not happen.
HISTORY OF THE ISSUE
Unfair Elections in America
The United States of America is a nation that cares greatly about fair election. The notion of democracy in
America is one of paramount importance, and as part of democracy- which is the largest part of USA's
government policy every person has a right to fair elections. Yet in the past, fair elections did not always
work out. Notably, the 1792 Gubernatorial Election in New York between John Jay and George Clinton
raised some problems in terms of its alleged fairness in the elections. 1 By the end of the election, it was
clear that John Jay had won more votes than George Clinton, yet George Clinton won the election due
to the disqualification of certain counties, leaving their votes discounted. Several people in the New York
area and the disqualified counties were opposed to this and voiced out their concerns to the press. Laws
were made that would potentially prevent some kind of unfair elections like this to repeat, but eventually
history did repeat itself.
In the presidential elections of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden, the presidency was
given to Hayes.2 Despite this, it was obvious that Tilden had won the majority of the vote. The election
results went to Hayes instead because four states were disqualified from voting: South Carolina, Louisiana,
Florida (all of whom reported their official candidate had actually won the state), and Oregon (being
declared an illegal as an elected or appointed official and replaced). As a means of compensation, all 20
of the electoral votes given to these states went towards Hayes. Until now, this occurrence is still
remembered as one of the most unfair elections in American history.
Despite all this previous history, the United States has had a mostly good repertoire in terms of its elections.
Not every country shares this repertoire; several countries in the world have had problems with elections,
1
2
) https://books.google.com/books?id=Gm04AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA42&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
)http://study.com/academy/lesson/presidential-election-of-1876-significance-issues-summary.html#lesson
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notably those in post-conflict areas and societies. Reasons for this include those of nation-building, and
intervention.
Nation Building
Problems have risen from a need for nation-building due to the people's needs in conflicts being
completely different from what the governments are giving to them. This was the case in such countries as
Egypt and Libya. Both countries contested their respective leaders, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and
Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya.
In the case of Egypt, people were tired of
former President Mubarak's 30 years of rule;
Mubarak changed the laws in Egypt several
times so that he would remain in power for
longer than necessary, and was considered
to be a very corrupt leader, and the
Egyptian people wanted their nation to
have a leader that would be less corrupt
and greedy. As such, in 2011, the people of
Egypt revolted against Mubarak, and
successfully got him out of power.3 For a
time, Egypt was without a leader until 2012,
when formal elections were held. In these
elections, Muhammad Morsi, the leader of
Thousands protested in Egypt against former dictator Hosni Mubarak
the Egyptian Brotherhood allegedly won by
51% of the votes.4 What Morsi ended up
doing was just bringing the Muslim Brotherhood into power, and virtually nothing else for Egypt. As a result,
he was revolted against as well, and eventually impeached.5 The Egyptian military saw an opportunity to
take power, and ousted Morsi themselves, which led to a large heap of respect for Abdul-Fattah El-Sisi, the
head of the Egyptian Military. Eventually, Sisi won presidency over Egypt and the military gained power
over Egypt. Sisi is currently the president of Egypt, and his military party has the most power over the
country as a whole6.
In the case of Libya, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi
reigned over Libya for over 50 years, until the
people of Libya were fed up with the injustice and
corruption of Qaddafi's reign. They wanted a stable
state with the ruler of their choice. As a result, they
revolted to oust Qaddafi, who was sentenced to
death in November 20117. Despite this, Libya
remains very unstable.
Many times, foreign involvement in Libyan elections
have been opposed and rejected due to
skepticism over foreign incentives. In fact, several Protesters rally against Qadaffi outside the Libyan Embassy in
times, elections have been boycotted by the Kuala Lumpur
3
)http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/07/millions-march-in-egyptian-protests/100543/
4
)http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/world/middleeast/brotherhood-chooses-a-candidate-in-egypt.html?_r=0
5
)http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2012/11/23/egypt-court-seeks-morsi-impeachment/
6 )http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/91969.aspx
7
)http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-15412529
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Libyan people.8 As such, Libya had a temporary anarchy for a number of years before Abdullah Al-Thani
was elected Prime Minister in March 2014. To this day, Prime Minister Al-Thani is the leader of Libya, but
instability and civil unrest still ensues over the nation as a whole9.
Intervention
Generally speaking, foreign involvement in elections is a form of intervention. Yet sometimes intervention
has more prevalent an effect than not. Such is the case in Iraq. Following the ousting of Saddam Hussein
from the Iraqi government by the United States' government, another government was put in place by the
United Nations Security Council. The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)10 was set up by the United States,
the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland as a transitional government to rule over Iraq until the next
elections. This was opposed by several people in Iraq, including the military. In fact, the military took to
ousting the CPA from their roots by gradually taking power as they could. The CPA slowly noticed and took
action as the United States military attacked the military bases in Fallujah and the CPA set an arrest
warrant for Muqtada Al-Sadr, the leader of the Iraqi military. Al-Sadr took refuge in the city of Najaf in
response11, while the military still pressed on, and the United States military attacked further when the Iraqi
military tried to gain control of the oil fields.
This led to the Battle of Mosul in 200412. After a long set of months of bloodshed, the United States military
and the CPA decided that Iraqi elections were imperative, and enforced elections in the country. A
constitution was made and ratified in a referendum by the majority of the country. Despite an election
being won, foreign involvement was still prevalent in the country, and American troops remained in Iraq
until 2011 when they were withdrawn by US president Barrack Obama13. Currently, Iraq remains in an
extremely unstable state, but has a functioning government led by President Fouad Massum14.
Focus Areas
Today it is a pressing issue for several countries to have fair and equal elections. Unfortunately, not every
nation in the world has the right to vote freely. Corruption and greed takes hold of the leaders in power, to
the point where they do what they can to keep themselves in power for a long time. The issue is so ample
that much of the world has discussed: what must be done to combat this pressing issue?
In recent years, there has been a rise of peacekeeping missions in the nations where civil unrest is an issue.
This is in existence to help stabilize nations in need, which in turn aids the nations in conducting elections in
the future. Another issue that effects elections is press freedom. A leader who is in power is able to limit
what reporters and journalists might be allowed to say and see for the sake of reporting. Certain bits of
information may be antithetic to the candidate and his or her image, so he or she can limit public
information that would otherwise hamper the potential leader's reputation, and thus hamper the chances
of election for that specific candidate.
Peacekeeping
8
)http://www.libyaherald.com/2014/02/17/tebus-announce-boycott-of-constitutional-committeeelections/#axzz3efB0nM2q
9
)http://www.enca.com/tripoli-under-militia-control-chaos-deepens
10
)http://www.iraqcoalition.org/
11
)http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=858
12
)http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/11/30/fear_of_ethnic_conflict_charges_mosul_unrest/
13
)http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/18/us-iraq-withdrawal-idUSTRE7BH03320111218
14
)http://alhayat.com/
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The objective of peacekeeping in the United Nations is to find solutions to problems in unstable countries
and instigate peace and stability. As the people and nations of the world face more and more problems
with instability and conflict, peacekeeping operations are becoming more and more crucial in the world
today. Such is the case with Syria. The civil unrest in Syria started in 2010, when a group of young children
and adults decided an uprising was needed to end the tyranny of Assad's regime. The entirety of the
Assad family has had control over Syria for decades, and when the Syrians grew tired of this, they took to
the streets to oppose and overthrow Bashar Al-Assad, the current leader of Syria. Bashar's resilient army
and followers opposed the opposition strongly, and to this day there remains a very harsh, bloody civil war
between Bashar's army and the Syrian opposition15.
As a result of this, the United Nations Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) was established in April 2012 as a
peacekeeping organization to stabilize the current issues in Syria16. The written mission to the organization is
to limit the escalating violence. The presence of UNSMIS in Syria is overall positive, with crime and death
rates decreasing, yet only decreasing by a slight rate. In terms of elections, UNSMIS attempted to help in
facilitating the elections in Syria, but their role was ever-so-minor as no UN organization may infringe on
sovereignty. This is one problem with peacekeeping during time of conflict; nations will often consider it an
infringement of sovereignty for another organization to be dealing with said country's affairs during a time
of elections.17 As such, elections
occurred as normal in 2012, with Bashar
Al-Assad allegedly winning 67% of the
votes. In 2014, the elections for president
took place again, wherein Assad won
88.7% of the votes. UNSMIS' involvement
in Syria is not permitted to have large
influence during times of elections, and
this is additionally the case in many other
countries. In addition, Syria has more
refugees than any country in the world,
who can vote through the Syrian
government in the countries they reside
(by discretion of that country), so UNSMIS
cannot account for everyone voting,
even if they do get involved18.
Brazilian peacekeeper serving in Haiti
Press Freedom
The objective of press freedom is to give reporters the opportunity to write and talk about current events as
they deem fit without a risk on their lives. Reporters, especially in countries with corrupt leaders, face
numerous threats, such as lawsuits, deportation, and even death threats. During times of elections, this can
pose several significant issues with those involved, as electoral candidates may want to censor information
and go through several means of doing so. Such was the case in Iran. By rankings of press freedom, Iran
ranks lowest in the Middle East19. While the ranking has not fallen and Iran has generally kept its position at
the bottom of the World Press Freedom Index, it is still at the bottom and no progress has been made. In
2010, the Iranian government arrested two German reporters who came to Iran to interview the family of a
15
)http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26116868
16
)http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unsmis/background.shtml
17
)http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/UN-leads-global-calls-for-action-against-violence-inSyria/articleshow/13564462.cms
18
)http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/world/middleeast/amid-fear-and-pressure-syrians-vote-for-president.html
19
)http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-Issues/2010/1020/Press-Freedom-Index-The-top-10-worst-countries/Iran
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woman who was sentenced to death by means of stoning. The two were accused of not being journalists,
given that they entered Iran with neither the proper documents, nor work visas (they entered on tourist
visas)20.
Cases like these are not uncommon in Iran, especially during times of election. In fact, when Ahmadinejad
won the Iranian elections on June 12, 2009, this led to ample protests in the country to oppose
Ahmadinejad, claiming that the votes were fraudulent or rigged21. Ahmadinejad allegedly won 62% of the
votes, with an 85% turnout in voters, yet a large portion of the population of Iran protested these results. It
came to the point where even the European Union and the United States got involved 22. The only
coverage given in Iran came from the Islamic Republic News Agency, the national news agency of Iran
run by the government23. In other cases, numerous news reporters were arrested, including those from
abroad reporting for foreign news agencies, such as BBC. Within Iran, numerous national and critical
newspapers and websites were shut down as the news they reported was not approved by Ahmadinejad.
20
)http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2010/1012/Iran-arrests-two-Germans-for-interviewing-family-ofaccused-adulterer-Ashtiani
21
)https://cpj.org/2010/02/attacks-on-the-press-2009-iran.php
22
)https://cpj.org/2010/02/attacks-on-the-press-2009-iran.php
23
)http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2009/0615/p99s01-duts.html
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It eventually came to the point where the Iranian government led a full-scale assault on not only the
opposing protesters, but also the media. By December 2009, there were 23 arrested journalists in Iran,
foreign and local alike, mainly for reporting on the post-election protests. Those arrested were rumored to
have been tortured24. Further foreign reporters and reporters against Ahmadinejad's regime were barred
from either entering the country,
reporting on the protests, or both.
If anyone was caught breaking
this rule, they would be arrested.
Not only news reporters were
affected by this rule. Iranian film
director Jafar Panahi voiced his
opposition to the election of
Ahmadinejad25. As a result of this,
Panahi was condemned to six
years in prison, and banned from
directing any films for the next 20
years. Foreign involvement in Iran's
elections, be it through media or
otherwise, has been very limited
as a result of these events, and
virtually no progress has been
made in terms of Iran's press
Iranian film director Jafar Panahi protesting during the Green Movement of 2009
freedom ranking.
24
25
)https://cpj.org/2010/02/attacks-on-the-press-2009-iran.php
)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7kZiSls1IA
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