Electoral Transparency was the biggest theme
in the recently-concluded conference on the Declaration of Principles
for International Election Observation hosted by the National Citizens’
Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) and the Asian Network for Free
Elections (ANFREL) held at the Dusit Thani Manila on November 12-14. The
participants agreed that transparent elections must meet two basic
criteria: 1) Each step is open to scrutiny; and 2) Stakeholders can
independently verify whether every process is conducted honestly and
accurately.
Experiences on electoral transparency in Tunisia and Mozambique were
presented by external monitors who observed the elections in these
countries. Applying established benchmarks on election observation, the
body arrived at the following findings regarding the state of
transparency in elections worldwide: 1) There is too much emphasis on
election day observation, where it should ideally cover most if not the
entire election period; 2) Countries with human rights issues are likely
evasive of transparent elections; and 3) Country Election Management
Bodies include major political parties but exclude smaller parties in
their policies and implementation of elections.
Election Observers can help promote transparent elections through
management of election data. They must ensure that they are using
primary data which are timely, relevant, freely available to all
stakeholders, complete, and most of all, analyzable.
The conference on the Declaration of Principles for International
Election Observation was attended by 28 election experts coming from
various international election bodies such as the UN Electoral
Assistance Division, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems
(IFES), The Carter Center, the National Democratic Institute for
International Affairs (NDI), the Office for Democratic Institutions and
Human Rights (ODIHR), the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy
in Africa (EISA), the Election Observation & Democratic Support of the
European Community, the European Union External Action Service,
International IDEA, Organization of American States (OAS), ANFREL and
NAMFREL. |
