Over the Two Decades, Post-Conflict International Military and Civilian Interventions Have

Electoral Violence Prevention Social Enforcement of Electoral Security Jeff Fischer

I. Introduction1

Social enforcement of electoral security involves non-official stakeholders employing values-based approaches to promote peaceful competition and post-election reconciliation. In risk-prone electoral environments, social enforcement should be incorporated into an overarching strategic framework for election security along with official enforcement mechanisms being implemented by election authorities and security forces. Social enforcement can be employed to prevent, manage, or mediate electoral conflict. This paper will focus on two categories of social enforcement stakeholders – civil society organizations and political parties.

The list below summarizes a basic set of program concepts of social enforcement mechanisms as cited by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

 Multi-stakeholder forums and consultations in preparation of a public campaign;  Electoral assistance groups whose members serve as volunteers to be poll workers or monitors;  Peace campaigns through civil society organizations;  Religious and cultural leaders’ forums;  Traditional leaders’ forums;  Strategic leadership development and training.2

With these activities in mind, the following sections identify specific examples of programming involving civil society and political parties.

II. What is Electoral Violence?

1 This paper was presented at a March 20, 2017 conference at King’s College London as an activity funded through the Explaining and Mitigating Electoral Violence project. Participation in this conference and the development of this paper was funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council, grant number ES/L016435/1, the principal funder of the project. 2 UNDP, Elections and Conflict Prevention – A Guide to Analysis, Planning and Programming, October 30, 2009, pages 38 and 39 1 Several definitions of electoral violence can be cited. One states that “Election violence is a particular type of political violence, and it occurs within the context of the overall process of democracy and democratization…Electoral violence is a sub-type of political violence in which actors employ coercion in an instrumental way to advance their interests or achieve specific political ends…”3 In another, it is defined as “any random or organized act or threat to intimidate, physically harm, blackmail, or abuse an electoral stakeholder in seeking to determine, delay, or to otherwise influence the electoral process.”4

And others conclude the following, “At the broadest level, by violence or political violence we mean the deliberate use of physical harm or the threat of physical harm for a political purpose. Overt physical violence can take the form of beatings, torture, and murder, but violence is also evident by its threat – by coercive intimidation. ‘Electoral violence’ refers to physical violence and coercive intimidation directly tied to an impending electoral contest or to an announced electoral result.”5

These definitions have at least three features in common. First, electoral conflict and violence has a broad range of manifestations. On one end of the spectrum, the scale of electoral violence was experienced in the post-election phase of the Popular Consultation in East Timor (1999) and the Kenyan presidential and parliamentary elections (2007), which left thousands of dead and displaced. But, electoral conflict can also manifest itself in personal intimidation, such as the so-called “night letters” delivered by the Taliban warning Afghan voters not to cast ballots in the 2009 presidential election or face personal consequences.

Second, conflict and violence are employed to achieve a political objective. In an electoral context, this objective would be surmised as a capture of the electoral process through the elimination of political rivals, suppression of voter turnout, coercion of voters, or intimidation of election officials.

And, third, electoral conflict and violence can occur during any phase of the election from voter registration, political campaigning, and Election Day to the announcement and implementation of outcomes. As a result, policy and programming options must be process-oriented and not electoral event-oriented with a singular focus on Election Day security.

III. Civil Society Organization Programs

Three areas where civil society organizations (CSOs) can provide social enforcement are in mediation, monitoring, and peace messaging/events.

A. Electoral Mediation

3 Sisk, pages 2 and 4 4 Fischer, Jeff, Electoral Conflict and Violence – A Strategy for Study and Prevention, IFES, 2002, page 8. 5 Straus and Taylor, page 9 2 For the purposes of this evaluation, electoral mediation can be defined as electoral engagement whereby an impartial third party employs alternative election dispute resolution in the adjudication of disputes related to an election. The purpose of mediation is to prevent electoral disputes from becoming conflictive. Electoral mediation can be preventative in nature, it can provide on-going conflict management, or it can serve as an instrument for crisis responses. It is a social enforcement reflection of electoral justice, which is rendered by electoral or judicial stakeholders. Two types of mediation programming are examined below: 1) media training; and 2) peace advocacy.

Mediation Training

The United States Institute of Peace’s (USIP) Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention in partnership with the USIP Education and Training Center – International, have offered electoral conflict mediation workshops in Sudan. These workshops built on earlier USIP work in Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, and were designed to address strategies for managing electoral conflict in northern and southern Sudan in advance of 2010 elections. These elections were the were a milestone in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement as they were first multi-party elections and the first to be inclusive of southern Sudan in the voting. There were three workshop components. The first component focused directly on electoral violence using case studies and simulations from other African countries. The second offered conflict resolution skills, including training on communication skills, conflict and negotiation styles, negotiation concepts, and problem solving skills. The third component focused on citizenship, including decision making and understanding stereotyping. This segment serves as an introduction to the benefits and challenges of democracy and the obligations of citizens to contribute to the peaceful functioning of their state. All of USIP’s workshops were organized in partnership with local nongovernmental organizations.6 While this election was described by international observers as “largely peaceful”7, deficiencies in electoral administration limited the success of the balloting.

Peace Advocacy

In another case, with the objective to keep the north provinces of Ghana violence-free for the 2004 presidential and legislative elections, UNDP implemented its Peace and Governance Project in September of that year. The project established a National Peace Council (NPC) and Regional and District Peace Advisory Councils employing mediation techniques to resolve electoral disputes and the national and sub-national levels. The election was described as “largely calm and peaceful” for both the December 7 first round and December 28 second round of voting.8

The National Peace Council expanded its activities for the 2016 elections to include the establishment of an Election Situation Room “to monitor, report, facilitate responses to violent threats to the peaceful conduct of the 2016 general [election]”9 throughout the 6 Bekoe, Dorina, Senior Research Associate, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, USIP, interview 7 The Carter Center, Observing Sudan’s 2010 National Elections, April 11-18, Final Report 8 UNDP, pages 65 and 66 9 http://3news.com/peace-council-establishes-election-situation-room-to-monitor-polls/ 3 country. Along with the National Peace Council, the Election Situation Room was coordinated by the West African Network for Peace Building (WANEP), the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy, Transform Ghana, and Blogging Ghana, reflecting a diversity of institutional profiles.

B. Monitoring – Violence and Electoral Disputes

The Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation states (5), “The findings of international election observation missions provide a factual common point of reference for all persons interested in the elections, including the political competitors. This can be particularly valuable in the context of disputed elections, where impartial and accurate findings can help to mitigate the potential for conflicts.” Monitoring and reporting on incidents of electoral violence creates a level of transparency and accountability for such actions taken by perpetrators, and, as a result, is intended to serve as a both a deterrent and incident archive.

Electoral Violence Monitoring

One example of such a reporting framework employed to monitor electoral violence can be found in the Electoral Violence Education and Resolution (EVER) Program at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The EVER Program is an electoral violence monitoring program (defined as violence or threats of violence against persons, property, or process during the electoral process).

IFES has worked with a mix of electoral institutions, civil society, and security actors in its EVER programs, but generally an EVER project is led by a civil society partner or coalition of partners. IFES builds the capacities of its CSO partner(s) as needed in the areas of operations of the project, analysis and reporting on data, advocacy for its recommendations, and outreach and collaboration with other stakeholders. Training modules, formats for reporting on paper or via SMS, online mapping and data management systems, advocacy guidelines, public reporting tips, and other tailored products and tools are available based on project and partner needs. The EVER Theoretical Framework assesses threats throughout the election calendar, during voter registration, the electoral campaign, Election Day, announcement of preliminary election results, and in subsequent representation. The Framework seeks to identify the motives for the conflict and violence of whether it is voter-motivated, state-motivated, rival-motivated, insurgent – motivated or a combination of these motives.

Essentially the EVER reporting format collects six items of information as described in the table below.

EVER Dataset Polling Station, Registration Office, Election Commission office, Other Election Office/Facility, Location of Violence Political Party Office, Media Office, Private Home, Street/Public Area, Vote Counting Center,

4 Authorized public campaign location, Non-election state office or property, Other. Eyewitness, Media, Police report/official, Hospital report/official. State agent/actor statement, 2nd Source of hand account/rumor, Other. Information Murder, Attempted murder, Kidnapping or attempted kidnapping, Physical harm or torture, Sexual assault, Threat of physical harm, Intimidation or psychological abuse, Insult/verbal harassment, Theft, Type of Violence Vandalism, Jail or arbitrary detention, Blackmail, Other Domestic or external agent of state, Political party or candidate, Election worker, Election monitor, Victim of Violence Journalist and media, Voter, Election ballot, material or process, Election office, Political party office, Private property, Non-election state office or property, Bystander, Other Perpetrator of Domestics or external agent of state, Political party or candidate, Militia, Private security actor, Violence Insurgent, Criminal element, Other Number of people killed, Number of people wounded, Number of people kidnapped, Voter Consequences of registration disrupted, Interference with voting and voters left area, Disrupted vote count, Damage or Violence destruction of election property, Damage or destruction of other property, Complaint filed with Electoral Commission, Cancelled election, Postponed election, Rerun election, Other

The data is then analyzed for patterns and visualized using different mapping platforms.

The Centre for Monitoring Electoral Violence (CMEV) is a Sri Lanka-based NGO which monitors elections for incidents of electoral violence. Their methodology classifies incidents into major and minor categories. Major incidents include murder, attempted murder, grievous hurt, threat and intimidation, robbery, arson, abduction, damage to property, and bribery. Categories of minor incidents include mischief, threat, election offence, and others identified by CMEV monitors. Locations where the incidents occurred are identified by province, district, and electorates. The political affiliations of the perpetrators of major incidents are identified. The findings of the monitors are visualized by charts and graphs, as well as incident maps by with icons identifying the locations of the incidents. Real-time incident updates are also provided via podcasts and videos.10

There is also an open source conflict mapping that is used to display the incident data collected. In the wake of the post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008, a Kenyan information technology firm, Ushahidi, announced the development of an open source application which can be downloaded and employed to map political violence. The organization’s name is Swahili for “testimony” or “witness” and the application was first developed to map reports of post-election violence in that country. The application allows the user to capture reports by mobile telephone, web, or e-mail and visualize it on a map or timeline. However, such crowd-sourcing techniques require special validation management to ensure the quality and accuracy of the postings.11

Electoral Dispute Monitoring

In addition to electoral conflicting monitoring, election dispute monitoring can be conducted as well. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has 10 https://cmev.org/ 11 https://www.ushahidi.com/ 5 developed an Election Dispute Monitoring System, for use by monitoring organizations which divides the electoral calendar as follows: pre-election registration; election campaign; Election Day issues; post voting issues; and general issues.12

Electoral dispute profiles can be archived in a Database for Election Disputes for reference and tracking. The OSCE database template codes cases according to the following criteria: Number, Court/Election Commission/Other Institution, Date, Region, Constituency, Complaints, Accused, Summary, Status, and Comments, Legal Basis of Complaint, Decision, Enforcement, and Category.13 With this data the patterns of complaints can be tracked and the outcomes monitored.

By monitoring electoral disputes, once again, transparency and accountability are enhanced with the intent to reduce the vulnerabilities for these disputes to turn conflictive and that they are fairly adjudicated.

C. Peace Messaging Programs/Events

Peace Messaging

For the 2014 presidential and parliamentary campaigns, Creative Associates International conducted a Peaceful Elections Advocacy Campaign in provinces selected because of their history of electoral violence. The objective of the campaign was to employ peace messaging to reduce electoral violence so that more voters would feel safe to participate. It also promoted a culture of non-violent electoral participation and to support voter education activities of the Independent Elections Commission (IEC) by amplifying its messaging where relevant to the project. The provinces selected for programming were Kandahar, Ghanzi, Hilmand, Khost, and Kunar. A series of focus groups were conducted in these provinces by Afghan partner organizations AABRAR and AidTrends. Focus groups were conducted in each phase of the electoral cycle – pre-election, Election Day, and, post-election. Messages were distributed vis posters, Pashto and Dari-language radio stations, and expanded into television advertising. Posters contained such illustrations and messages such as “Your participation in a peaceful election ensures a bright future.”. The campaign distributed its own posters as well as those on behalf of the IEC. For radio, the messages were straightforward such as “Dear Compatriots! As you participated in the first round of elections and proved to the world that Afghan will peacefully choose their government via elections, let’s vote peacefully again [in the second round]”. Each script was recorded in a different fashion with language accents specific to the province in focus, mixed gender and age interpretation of words. The Roshan Afghanistan Premiere League was engaged to participate in the television advertising, comparing the second round of voting to the second half of a football game. According to focus groups conducted after the election, the messages were cited as enhancing the understanding of elections by the participants and, for women in particular, that voting as a “right”.

12 Petit, Denis, Resolving Election Disputes in the OSCE Area: Toward a Standard Election Dispute Monitoring System, 2000, page 16. 13 Petit, page 19 6 Peace Events

The province of Masbate in the Philippines has been cited as a location where election- related has been severe and longstanding. However, in part, through the efforts of the Masbate Advocates for Peace (MAP), an initiative of Father Leo Cases (a consortium of CSOs, individuals, and local businesses) the 2010 Election Day was violence free. While incidents of violence occurred in the Pre-Election and Post-Election Phases, the absence of violence on Election Day was seen as exceptional. This was accomplished through the instruments of peace covenants, rallies, and messaging to foster the political will among local politicians not to engage in violence. Given the lack of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure in the province, these activities were conducted on a person-to-person level which emphasized the importance of relationships and trust.

With a history of violence and political instability, the International Peace and Prosperity Project (IPPP) played a key role in helping to ensure Guinea-Bissau held relatively peaceful presidential elections on June 19, 2005. As part of this project, the IPPP held a multi-stakeholder meeting in April 2005. Out of this gathering, participants decided to for the Citizens’ Goodwill Task Force, which received a small grant from IPPP. The Task Force launched a multi-faceted nation-wide campaign to promote peaceful elections. 14 In the pre-election phase, the Task Force conducted media events, candidate debates, T-shirt and banner distributions promoting electoral integrity, meetings with neighboring heads of state to request neutrality, and assistance for non-partisan journalists. On Election Day, the Task Force formed “Peace Brigades,” enlisting a large number of people to work as unofficial observers and facilitators in case of disturbances (The contribution of the Peace Brigades was later recognized by European Union election observers as being significant in the prevention of violence). The Peace Brigades blended peace messaging and mediation. And, for period after the elections, the Task Force met with candidates to encourage their acceptance of election results. After the election, many observers within and outside of Guinea-Bissau remarked that the task force was an unprecedented and positive development that made a significant contribution to holding a peaceful election.

IV. Political Party Programs

Two common instruments to engage political parties in prevention, management, and mediation of electoral conflict are the use of political party councils and codes of conduct, often implemented in tandem.

1. Political Party Councils

Political party councils provide a platform for rivals to meet among themselves and with the Electoral Management Body (EMB). For parties, these councils can serve the trio of

14 UNDP, page 40 7 purposes outlined above—foster accountability for political behavior to prevent violence, inter-party communications to manage violence, and dispute resolution to mediate conflict. For example, a council can be a forum to train party members in electoral procedures, such as party poll-watcher training. Such training can help to prevent Election Day and post- election violence by ensuring members know how to identify polling place irregularities and the mechanisms used to lodge complaints. For the EMB, these councils represent formal opportunities for EMB officials to meet with contestants and learn about their issues and concerns. In form, political party councils can be statutory, as in South Africa and Malawi as discussed below in the context of codes of conduct, with the EMB as the enforcement authority; or voluntary, as in Liberia. In Lesotho and Ghana, political parties partner with CSOs and faith-based organizations (FBOs) in monitoring and compliance.

For the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2007 Sierra Leone, UNDP provided support for the creation of the Political Party Registration Commission (PPRC), a program to strengthen parties, anticipate and mediate disputes, and prevent conflict. The PPRC engaged in an inter-party discussions and developed a code of conduct to guide party members’ conduct. The code established a Code Monitoring Commission (CMC) composed of representatives of political parties, police, civil society organizations, National Commission for Democracy, and the Inter-Religious Council. District Code Monitoring Committees (DCMCs) were established in each of the 14 districts in Sierra Leone to monitor compliance with the code on the sub-national level.

2. Political Party Codes of Conduct

While each code is unique, a review of the texts reveals some common features in most codes. First, the codes express a set of principles, often in the form of a Preamble. These principles generally involve the recognition of fundamental rights and freedoms as being essential to a free and fair election. The codes often provide definitions and descriptions of which stakeholders are or can be covered by the code’s requirements. The codes mandate certain conduct and behaviors both as prohibitions and positive actions. For example, prohibitions include hate speech, defacing campaign posters, disrupting campaign events, and intimidation of voters. Positive actions include engaging women as candidates and party leaders. Codes may also encourage the involvement of youth in the party activities. Some codes describe prohibitions on certain financial receipts and expenditures of political parties. However, without legally binding political finance enforcement and capacity, the code alone is a weak instrument for financial regulation.

Codes may restrict the use of certain symbols on campaign materials or the manipulation of other parties’ symbols for political gain. The role of party agents is cited in some codes; however, in other situations, party agents are “covered” by a code of conduct for election observers. Codes usually require the parties to respect electoral outcomes that have been fairly adjudicated and certified. Finally, codes may be election-specific, that is, developed and applicable for a given electoral cycle such as in Iraq for the elections of 2005; or applied more generally to all elections. The Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) cites the example of Mozambique where new codes of conduct are adopted before each election as a renewal of values by the political parties.

8 Codes of conduct are signatory documents. As such, whether the code is legally binding or not, the signatory representing the stakeholder covered by the code should have the authority to commit his or her organization to its terms. Finally, the political party code of conduct could be considered as one element of a “system” of codes applied to other electoral stakeholders. In addition to potentially being cited in the party code, the police, judiciary, election observers, election officials, and media may each be subject to a dedicated code of conduct for their own profession or responsibilities.

Political party code initiatives can be championed by domestic stakeholders, the international community or both. For Ghana in 2008, the Institute of Economic Affairs – Ghana (IEA – Ghana), in follow-up to its 2004 work on the political party code, mobilized the political parties to draw up a new code of conduct. The 2004 code put into place the Ghana Political Parties’ Program (GPPP) so that there was an existing mechanism to initiate the new draft. The 2008 code was assembled through a partnership of the IEA – Ghana, GPPP, Electoral Commission, and the National Commission for Civic Education. Enforcement was organized on a national and regional basis. The National Enforcement Body was led by the Secretary General of the Christian Council of Ghana. Regional Enforcement Bodies were employed in fact-finding modes composed of the GPPP, regional directors of the Electoral Commission, and the National Civic Education Commission. However, despite this seemingly comprehensive approach, the enforcement mechanisms were viewed as ineffective because they had no “teeth.”

To give them more “teeth,” the terms of the codes of conduct can be mandated in legislation such as in the case of Malawi where the Parliamentary and Presidential Elections Act (1993, 61 (2)) tasks the Electoral Commission with the establishment and enforcement of a political party code. The terms of the code of conduct are legally binding and can be enforced with legal sanctions. South Africa is another such example where the party code is derived from the Electoral Act and promulgated and enforced by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

As cited in the Sierra Leone and Ghana examples, political party codes drive another form of election monitoring associated with election security, that is, monitoring compliance to the provisions of political party codes. While the party councils themselves will conduct self-monitoring, organizations outside of the council membership may be recruited to assure impartiality in monitoring. For example, in the Somaliland party code, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) is instructed to form an Integrity Watch Committee that will be managed by a Somaliland NGO, the Academy for Peace and Development.

V. Conclusions

The correlation between social enforcement and peaceful elections is often unclear. This lack of clarity is linked to the assumption that social enforcement is intended to impact

9 attitudes and behavior. In one respect, for measurement, it requires individuals to declare that their behaviors were altered by the programming, which may or may not be the case. However, incident monitoring such as with EVER and the CMEV may be a quantitative approach if calibrated properly to measure the impact of the specific social enforcement objective. Perhaps it is best expressed that social enforcement fosters an environment where violent behaviors are discouraged or disapproved. Such an impact can be compared with that of official enforcement where violent behaviors are confronted and contained. There should be an integrated strategy in conflict-prone electoral environments which combines social enforcement with official enforcement through state security forces, electoral authorities, and judiciary in response to a shared vision of the causes, threats, and objectives.