Election & Political Processes
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:
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:
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
For further information, please contact:
Laura Grace, Senior Program Assistant
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Updated June 2003
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