Untitled DocumentOverview
NDI's approach to election-related programming in transitional countries
seeks to help catalyze democratic reforms and is tied integrally to (a)
promoting the integrity of electoral and political processes and (b)
promoting the right of citizens to participate in government.1
These points are interlaced and lead to a number of related activities:
promoting constitutional and law reforms concerning electoral-related rights and processes;
assisting political parties in protecting their electoral-related rights and their vote;
assisting citizen organizations in developing and strengthening watchdog, advocacy and citizen participation activities in the electoral context;
international electoral assessments to support the preceding activities and to inform the international community about the developing political conditions in a country.
NDI is accepted as a leading organization in promoting democratic
reform through election-related programming, in general and in each of
these four areas of activity. Part of NDI's approach is to always
recognize that elections are part of a country's overall political process
and to take a programmatic view that considers a broad country
context, as well as international standards and best practices. For
these purposes elections may be differentiated into five categories:
Democratic breakthrough elections, where a power-shift leads to
elections under new conditions (Central and Eastern Europe in
the early 1990s, South Africa 1994);
Managed transition elections, where the old power structure
remains in place and implements democratic reforms
(Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria);
Continuing transition elections, where second, third or even later
elections are held under a new democratically elected
government that is still on the democratic track (South Africa
1999, Macedonia and Nicaragua);
Backsliding elections, where a democratically elected
government is moving away from democratic reforms (Slovakia
1998) or where the democratic reform process has been
reversed (Niger 1996);
Post-conflict elections, where elections are organized as a
consequence of a peace agreement and may include significant
intervention by the international community, up to international
administration (Bosnia, Cambodia 1994 and Guatemala 1999).
In each of these circumstances, increased pressure for democratic
change meets resistance in varying forms. Public consciousness and
activity on all sides is heightened in these periods, which provide
critical opportunities and challenges for democratic reform. These
challenges and opportunities go to the core of the purposes of the
electoral exercise - to provide a means to resolve peacefully the
struggle for political power and to provide the basis for the people of a
country to express their will about who shall have the authority to
govern.
International Election Assessments
Since NDI's first international election observer delegation in 1986, the
Institute has become one of the leading international nongovernmental
organizations in the field. The Institute has organized 45 comprehensive
international election observer delegations. NDI's methodology for these
delegations includes: (a) on-the-ground analysis throughout most of the
critical pre-election period; (b) at least one pre-election assessment
delegation that analyzes the political environment, the degree of civil
society engagement, voter awareness, as well as the state of
administrative preparations, and offers recommendations for improving
the process; (c) an international election observer delegation of
sufficient size and duration to determine the genuineness of the
process up to the immediate post-election period; and (d) post-election
follow-up analysis by staff and others in order to draw appropriate
conclusions about the process.
NDI also has organized more than 50 pre-election assessments, where
no election delegation was sent, and numerous examples of
heightened staff presence to assist ongoing election-related programs
and/or to provide the Institute with a better understanding of election
and political processes in a country. On occasion, the Institute joins
formally with UNDP, the UN Electoral Assistance Division and other
intergovernmental organizations to coordinate or facilitate the activities
of various international election observer delegations for a particular
election. NDI also coordinates informally and engages in discussions
with intergovernmental and international nongovernmental organizations
about how to improve election monitoring.
Political Party Agents
NDI has always appreciated the importance of domestic efforts to
ensure the integrity of election and political processes. First among
these have been the efforts of political contestants (parties and
candidates) to organize their supporters to guard and promote their
ability to compete openly and freely. This includes organizing party and
candidate agents to monitor the drawing of election districts, creation of
voter registries, ballot qualification processes, campaigning activities
and media behavior. Even more frequently, this has included training
and deploying legions of party and candidate pollwatchers. At each of
these stages, political contestants have to develop recruitment,
training, deployment and communication structures. They also have to
organize their supporters to analyze information and to make effective
use of complaint mechanisms and public relations opportunities that
spring from these activities.
Nonpartisan Monitors
NDI also has, from the beginning of its election observation efforts,
grasped the importance of domestic nonpartisan election monitoring by
nongovernmental citizen groups. The Institute has assisted nonpartisan
election monitoring in some 52 countries around the globe. These
activities have ranged from mobilizing hundreds of monitors for
by-elections in Kyrgyzstan and local elections on Nicaragua's Atlantic
Coast, to thousands of monitors in Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Georgia,
Kenya, Peru and Yemen, to hundreds of thousands in Indonesia.
Domestic monitoring takes a variety of forms, including single
organizations conducting unified national efforts, separate organizations
conducting parallel efforts and joint ventures carrying out
complementary monitoring. In addition, national coalitions and
combinations of national, local and regional coalitions have conducted
coordinated monitoring efforts and there are also mixtures of these
models adapted to meet national conditions. Monitoring efforts can
include election day activities, specialized monitoring of vote
tabulations (PVTs), media monitoring, voter registration monitoring and
other activities.
Electoral Law Reform
Constitutional reform and law reform concerning electoral-related rights
and processes encompasses each of the areas noted above. NDI has
always treated legal reform as a complement to these activities. The
Institute's election law reform projects in more than 20 countries have
linked substantive analysis and recommendations to improving the
political process through more inclusive dialogue among the
parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties and open public
discussion of legal alternatives. In over a dozen countries, NDI has
assisted the efforts of nongovernmental citizen groups, most of which
conducted nonpartisan election monitoring, in election law reform
efforts.
—Footnote—
1. The basis for this approach in the international human rights regime
begins with Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(1948) and runs through a series of international instruments and
resolutions of intergovernmental organizations, including most recently,
the UN Commission on Human Rights Resolution 1999/75, on
"promotion of the right to democracy."
Contact Information
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