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Michael Scharff, a senior research specialist at Princeton University, describes how Liberia achieved peaceful elections in 2005 following the 2003 peace agreement that ended the civil war that had devastated the country since the late 1980’s. The peace agreement resulted in an interim government, which set clear electoral laws and appointed a new election commission tasked with establishing public trust and ensuring peaceful elections. A UN peacekeeping mission was also deployed to monitor the implementation of the peace agreement.
The election commission tackled issues like voter registration and electoral boundaries, and on election day international and domestic monitors helped make sure polling staff followed electoral procedures. Despite some controversy with the presidential election results, the October 2005 elections were relatively peaceful, which Scharff credits to pre-emptive measures like the presence of armed United Nations peacekeepers to ensure voters felt safe, and the election commission’s “care in staff selection, its emphasis on fairness for parties and candidates, its openness, and its willingness to relax certain requirements to encourage broad participation by Liberians.”
“‘Those were exciting times, because Liberia had been at war for nearly 14 years, and to have an opportunity to elect leaders that would take them out of the mode of belligerence and violence, that was very good,’” said Frances Johnson-Morris, head of the election commission. “‘When you involve people in decision making, you uphold your transparency and your credibility. I think we did that very well.’”
