NDI recently partnered with pop-music star Bobi Wine to record a song that sends a message against election violence in his native Uganda. The song, composed in Lugandan and entitled “A Serious Matter,” is a mix between reggae and local African music. It is part of a campaign to encourage Ugandans to use a new citizen hotline called “Uganda Watch 2011” to voice concerns about the integrity of the electoral process surrounding polls set for February 2011.

In the decade since the founding of the Community of Democracies, which met June 2-4 in Poland, a major change has been the explosion of technology and the tools it has created, both for those supporting the free flow of ideas and other democratic values and for authoritarian states interested in the opposite, curtailing information and suppressing human rights.
 

During 2006 elections in Uganda, international observers and domestic monitors reported significant violations of electoral law and protocol, including disenfranchisement of voters, counting and tallying irregularities, the use of state funds for campaign activities and the incarceration of political opposition leaders. As February 2011 elections approach, efforts are underway to head off potential repetition of these problems and violations.

DEMGroup and Citizens Coalition for Electoral Democracy, domestic election monitoring organizations, are carrying out a comprehensive monitoring strategy that includes a citizen hotline.

Ben Fuller of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) went to Rwanda as a trainer for NDI to work with young political leaders from all 10 Rwandan political parties. He recounts his experience in this piece that originally appeared on the SEIU blog.