In an old building covered in scaffolding in the backstreets of Londons Southwark district, a staircase leads to the dingy, top-floor offices of Electoral Reform International Services (Eris). The rumble of the trains and the clang of construction-workers hammers outside add to the sense that this is an unlikely setting for an organisation which offers advice to democracies all over the world.
But appearances can deceive. In one corner of the office, dozens of coloured pins stuck on a large map of the world denote the countries where Eris founded in 1992 as an independent and non-political institute, a division of the long-established Electoral Reform Society (ERS) has provided support to emerging democratic regimes.
Eriss work aims to support young or emerging democracies around the world. It helps ensure that elections are free and fair, engages in electoral education and assists in good governance. Eriss projects also educate new voters about electoral law, aid electoral commissions in their work, make sure elections are transparent, and work towards democratic consolidation.
States under scrutiny
Eris is well known in Britain for election-observation missions conducted on behalf of the countrys foreign and commonwealth office (FCO). To do this, Eris relies on volunteers. What does it take to be an Eris volunteer? James Blair, senior programme manager, explains.
The observation work isnt paid so its purely personal motivation. Academic experts have a certain knowledge and involvement and often want to see, for example, the effects of a certain law in the electoral system being implemented first hand. Later we get regional experts who work in the country in NGOs. They will have been involved in voter education, or trained polling staff themselves, so theyre very keen to go out and see what effect this has on the voters. Former foreign office staffers are really good because they treat everyone the same. Then we have those like myself, people in the office who work in this sector.
What we try to avoid are experts affiliated with political parties, which isnt always easy, because in some countries theres a clear bias towards a particular party. And therell often be journalists trying to get in the mission because its a way to get into the country.
So its a difficult balance to recruit those who are interested in a country but not so interested that they have an agenda, which, when we have to get a hundred people three times in Ukraine last year, is when it gets difficult.
But it is not as simple as 300 people landing in Ukraine or Liberia, trying to set things right, then leaving. Eriss project work requires much more careful coordination, involving a single mission divided into different teams with diverse purposes.
The way a mission works is that you have a core team who go out months before an election. Theyre based in the capital and they watch the whole process the spending of funds, advertising, campaigning as well as keeping an eye on how any electoral law is drafted. Then, two months before the election starts, long-term observers arrive. But the ones who get the most publicity are the poll observers they go out a week before the election to cover the polls and the end of the campaign, and then leave. The long-term observers do the follow-up work making sure that people were allowed to vote and get proper legal representation if necessary. Then they leave and then the core team watches that process finish and then they come out. After the elections in Ukraine last year, some of the core team stayed for six months you really have to stay to follow-up or the mission becomes pointless.
So far, so comprehensive. But no matter how efficient and well-chosen the mission, intervening in another countrys fate sounds wrong. After all, in western countries, it took centuries of debate, wars, revolutions and riots before democracy actually started functioning. How can the West justify imposing their representatives on countries which in some cases achieved independence just thirty years ago?
Eris goes in for two reasons. One is the international communitys interest: down to whether or not people will invest or not, they need to know whether this is a stable country. The other is the people of the countries themselves. For example, in the former Soviet states, theres not a 70%-30% split whereby most of the country is going to be happy with a particular result. Its usually quite a narrow margin so what will keep them from taking to the streets and protesting is that independent assurance that this was a free and fair election.
James Blair stresses Eriss experience in Ukraine just before the Orange revolution in November-December 2004. Eriss intervention in Ukraine was in no way cynical, he says. Since Ukraine is a member of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), it had the obligation of opening its election to investigation. Sticking to this commitment by opening polls to external scrutiny is part of what being and becoming a democracy is about.
So why dont older democracies get scrutinised too? James Blair says: There was a mission to America in 2004 but it was very small. In the newer developing states the repercussions of a badly done election can be revolution peaceful at best, bloody civil wars at worse. Usually were talking about quite fundamental shifts in power and thats why its so important to make sure that different political factions leave or move into power free and fairly.
A western import?
Democracy may be the most peaceful form of government, and it might also be the best way for countries emerging from civil or tribal wars, slaughters and genocide to make a new start and enter the international stage. However, democracy does not spread by itself, and the countries where it is most rooted tend to be those committed to liberalism and free-market capitalism; it often seems that democracy could not develop in other economic contexts. Is promoting democracy, or supporting it, more about dropping a western package on young democracies for the benefit of the global free market, than trying to reflect on what would be more suited to a countrys culture?
Perhaps, but one thing is true: without picking any one particular way of setting up your economy, essentially a lot of these developing countries asking for democratic support are very poor. Talk about democracy and rights is lost on many, who might think 'whoever is in parliament, I live on a rubbish dump and I try and get $5 a year'. Democracy has to go hand in hand with some kind of economic development if you have a stable country, people will invest. We see that as a positive thing.
There are other arguments which we try to avoid because they are political decisions. You have to be aware that perhaps opening a country to free trade can harm their economy. I would go so far as to say that unless you have some plans for economically developing countries to get employment rates up, attempts to democratise that country will fail. What makes Britain stable is that everyone is a stakeholder, we have property, we have jobs, weve got stuff to lose if we were to take to the streets. Whereas in many countries people literally have nothing to lose except their life.
Indeed, in the same way democracy is not the only and absolute means to heal a countrys deep wounds; elections are not the only step a country needs to take towards democracy. A democracy rests on multiple and diverse pillars which are all interdependent: free and fair elections are just one.
Culture and democracy
Eris is not involved in all aspects of democratisation United States organisations like the National Democratic Institute and the Carter Center have the capacity to specialise in areas such as the rule of law but part of its mission is to educate people as voters. Indeed, anti-democratic attitudes prevalent in some political environments mean that Eris frequently has to deal with people as voters before being able to start overseeing elections.
There are also issues of education to consider. In Africa, for example, the main problem in providing the tools for people to learn more about elections, human rights, and democracy is an illiteracy rate that can make meaningless Eriss distribution of placards or leaflets. Therefore people on the ground have to find ways to appeal to the population through things they already know or like.
Under an election support contract on behalf of the European Union, Eris worked towards the Liberian elections in October 2005 for more than a year. It tried tackling illiteracy through street dancing and street theatre things that happen spontaneously in Liberia and that are deeply rooted in the countrys culture.
Its something that will grab their attention and perhaps put a message in there, says Blair. If you can give people some lyrics that they can sing to themselves, thats one way of defeating not having television or getting round the fact that you get 80% illiteracy rates and you cant hand out placards. Whatever the message you use, its the sense that youre trying to put these ideas in peoples heads: you have these rights and you have these responsibilities.
Another problem is that sexual equality is either nascent or nil in some of these places. You see this in an observation mission where a husband brings his wife around the booth, and youre trying to say one person behind the screen and you get the response but she doesnt know who to vote for. Its difficult because culturally, women take second place and suddenly these people from Europe turn up and say, no, women are equal to men and they have the right to vote in private, and its completely alien. You cant say we do this in Europe, its better so you have to try and get them to see that its better. Its not easy because obviously the men resist it and the women feel its wrong to step up and this is a very long process.
The other problem we have is that you dont want a bunch of white people turning up in Africa and telling them what to do because that has certain historical connotations. So we like to use regional trainers, local trainers. Its much more effective to use Liberians to train other Liberians because people react better if its one of their own people telling them something.
During the Liberia mission, Eris also got involved in training political parties. The normal tendency for a new party is to lie their way around everywhere for example, saying if we get into power everyone will get no tax or slandering opposition parties. So we have to get them to adhere to a code of ethics that they wont lie, they wont make false promises and, crucially, they wont intimidate people. Liberia has just emerged from a very long-running civil war and back then, the way you got your message across is that you went to a village and you chopped peoples arms off . So again, you have to show people that although that worked for them in the past, perhaps thats not the way that things should operate in the future. And again you have to avoid patronising people.
Before I met James Blair, I was suspicious of the work of Electoral Reform International Services and other democracy-promoters. I thought that NGOs such as Eris were either the convenient moral conscience of the west or missionaries of a system that has yet to prove itself of benefit to the developing world. Also, their actions always seemed like they were rescuing someone from drowning without teaching them how to swim. But the truth is, when someone is drowning, you cant teach him how to swim on the spot. Rescuing is just the first step.
