[CivilSoc] Central Electoral Commissions a Major Obstacle to Democracy in Eurasia

[Moderator]

ENTRENCHED CENTRAL ELECTION COMMISSIONS A MAJOR OBSTACLE TO DEMOCRACY IN
EURASIA (Excerpts from RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies, Vol. 4, No. 23, 10
September 2003)
In Eurasia, at the center of attention for struggling oppositions as well as
international donors fretting about "democracy deficits" is the institution
known as the Central Election Commission (CEC), the body responsible for
supervising elections. Post-Soviet CECs have extensive powers and resources
and far from serving as neutral agents ensuring impartiality, they have a
great capacity to influence the outcome of the elections, legal experts say.
They have evolved into a vehicle for the executive branch of government and
the incumbents to remain in power. Most countries have some type of national
electoral body, or appointed officials to supervise the counting of the
ballot and to monitor such issues as campaign financing. In the former
Soviet Union, they have become distorted by autocratic rulers feigning
democracy. Efforts to try to reform these commissions have in fact helped to
perpetuate an institution that is inherently flawed because nowhere are
commissioners prepared to stand up to governments in power, election experts
say. Leaders who are facing significant challenges to their power base in
local and parliamentary elections always begin to tinker with the national
CEC to tilt it in their favor, as, for example, Ukrainian President Leonid
Kuchma is expected to do soon in appointing a new CEC that will affect the
2005 presidential campaign.
When foreign election organizations such as the U.S.-based International
Foundation for Electoral Systems make suggestions for reforms, they often
propose substantial democratization of the CECs, as well as elimination of
their power to make lock-step appointments of lower regional electoral
bodies and thus put the "fix" in long before election day. If they cannot
influence legal reform, democracy promoters such as the two party institutes
of the U.S. (the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and
the International Republican Institute), as well as their counterparts in
Europe, devote considerable efforts to negotiating with both officials and
opposition groups to open up the CECs to some opposition participation.
So much focus has been placed on getting opposition parties some presence in
these commissions that many have lost sight of the fact that the frenetic
struggle is itself a symptom of a basic dysfunction: the widespread loss of
trust in government impartiality, based on more than a decade of experiences
where government-controlled CECs preside over manipulation of the vote count
and outright ballot-box stuffing...
In Georgia, opposition groups at first celebrated the intervention of former
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, who evolved a plan initially accepted
by President Eduard Shevardnadze that created a formula to make the CEC more
representative for the 2 November parliamentary elections. The opposition
obtained nine seats to apportion among themselves -- the majority -- while
the government retained the right to appoint five seats. Most importantly,
both sides agreed to having the chairman of the commission appointed by the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The plan was
designed to prevent the ruling Shevardnadze-led bloc "For a New Georgia"
from taking over all the seats, especially as the electoral landscape was
confused by the presence of several parties that emerged last year as
split-aways from the ruling Citizens' Union of Georgia.
But then "The Industrialists" and the "Union for Georgian Revival" demanded
more seats for their party instead of the one they had because they had
cleared the 7 percent hurdle in the previous parliamentary elections,
eurasianet.org reported on 9 July. At this point, the carefully calibrated
plan broke down... Groups that were not really part of the opposition and
were not willing to burn their bridges with the ruling party began to demand
seats as "the opposition" and the true opposition's majority began to erode.
"Today, each opposition leader claims to possess 'irrefutable evidence'
demonstrating the hidden collaboration of the other opposition parties with
Shevardnadze," Zaal Anjaparidze, an NGO leader wrote in the Jamestown
Foundation's "Russia and East European Review" on 22 July...
In many countries in the region, the presence of many parties, some
indistinguishable from each other and in the process of  splitting, has been
used as an excuse to provide less access to the CECs by the opposition. A
glance at the official website  of the Azerbaijani CEC provides some insight
as to how these bodies are able to wield such influence. For one, the
chairman of  the CEC is a supporter of President Heidar Aliev and has held
the position since 1992. Azerbaijan, under pressure from the international
community, developed a formula for CEC seats to be composed of opposition
blocs, the parliament, and the  government. But because the parliament is
heavily controlled by the administration, and the government has created
loyalist parties posing as opposition, the deck is stacked in favor of the
powers-that-be -- and their heirs. Although the CEC published a list of 12
approved candidates for the presidential elections, visitors to
http://www.cec.gov.az/en/main_az.htm will look in vain for the biographies
of most of the opposition candidates. Profiles are provided of President
Aliev, from the New Azerbaijan Party, and his son, Ilham Aliev, from the
Voters' Initiative Group, and several others.
With a month remaining  before national elections, no biographies are
available for Isa Gambar of the Musavat Party, Etibar Mamadov of the
National Independence Party, or Ari Karimli of the Azerbaijani Popular Front
Party. While such omissions could always be explained by programming
glitches or failure of parties to meet editorial deadlines, perusal of
minutes from recent meetings of the CEC illustrates a deeper problem. At a 2
September session, court actions again Hafiz Hajiyev, chairman of the Modern
Musavat Party, Karimli, and Mamadov were proposed for their alleged offenses
against the "honor and dignity" of the president and other candidates. A
warning was issued and the complaints were sent to prosecutors and the
Justice Ministry for further investigation. Voters would have to visit
alternative sites of independent newspapers or English-language sources such
as the IFES program in Azerbaijan (http://www.ifesaze.org) to learn more
about the electoral process, proposals for reform, and find links to
opposition parties.
Unafraid of the libel laws invoked by the CEC about other candidates, in a 3
September television address, Ilham Aliev praised his father, saying he was
responsible for the existing stability in Azerbaijan today, and said he
would maintain the current political course. He attacked Karimli as being
"weak-willed," Mamedov for exhibiting "political faithlessness," and
ridiculed Gambar as "an unsuccessful postgraduate student who could not
write his thesis in 11 years," eurasianet.org reported on 9 September.
Both domestic and international groups that have struggled to make the CECs
more representative and thus--in theory--more transparent and less prone to
fraud, say that even when they fail, gaining even a few seats or a slightly
opener process is worth it. Those left completely outside the process, or
who decide to boycott elections governed by such rigged commissions, are not
heeded, even by international democracy supporters who often say that local
opposition groups need to practice  building coalitions, gaining
constituents, and participating in elections. After more than a decade of
such futile "practice," however, opposition parties have increasingly taken
to the streets to organize mass demonstrations or even turned to extremist
movements outside of the political process because of the lack of democracy.
Unlike the Caucasus and Central Asia, where opposition or quasi-opposition
parties have gained seats on the CECs, in Belarus, despite several years of
effort and intervention by the OSCE and other international agencies,
opposition groups are still blocked entirely and have no seats on the CEC.
The shadow of Viktar Gonchar hangs over the political scene in Minsk as a
warning to upstarts. Gonchar was an opposition leader who once served as
chairman of the CEC that challenged Lukashenka's manipulation of the 1996
national referendum. He disappeared in 1999 and is widely believed to be the
victim of a government-sponsored abduction and killing.
Currently, an opposition coalition has made an offer of dialogue to the
government to discuss electoral law reforms to make the CEC more
representative for the 2004 parliamentary elections, but, according to the
opposition and the government, they are unlikely to succeed. President
Lukashenka seeks to bar the opposition completely from the CEC--or perhaps
pack it with a few pro-government members of the "opposition"--to avoid a
situation where enough dissident candidates could win parliamentary
elections. Dangerously for the president, that would mean they could block
the president's plans to hold yet another referendum on the constitution to
enable him to run for president again in 2006.
While success cannot yet be claimed, the high-profile interventions by Baker
and the persistent efforts of the OSCE, as well as democracy institutes and
NGOs, have made some inroads for beleaguered oppositions. This fall in the
Caucasus brings yet another test of the will of the international community
to stand up to dictators as well as the capacity of local oppositions to
keep on "practicing" democracy with such flawed institutions as the CECs. It
will also be a chance to see whether voters are willing to keep on
participating in ballots that have been structured to be unfair long before
election day.
Copyright (c) 2003. RFE/RL, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with
permission.
"RFE/RL (Un)Civil Societies" is prepared by Catherine Fitzpatrick on the
basis of reports by RFE/RL broadcast services and other sources. It is
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