SINCE the ushering in of multi-party politics in Africa, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in the early 1990s, observation of elections by external organisations has been one of the mechanisms employed to ensure free and fair elections in these countries. Although such monitoring is also carried out by local groups, there seems to be a general view that the credibility or otherwise of elections are better established by external observers with no stake in the voting.
This could be a naïve view, though. Before any multi-party election in African states, a number of international organisations such as the, European Union, the Commonwealth, la Francophonie, and notable international NGOs such as the Carter Centre and the National Democratic Institute line up to observer.
This is so important, African states have negotiated a treaty regime on democracy, which among other things, makes provision for election observation: the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, (ACDEG) adopted in 2007, and entered into force in 2012.
A kernel of this development has been the pressure towards periodic credible elections to choose Africa’s leaders. This process has been the closest alternative for the expression of the popular will. To the credit of international observers there have been instances when rigged elections have been exposed or at least reports by observers have cast doubt on the outcome. An example was the Kenyan election of 2007 that led to violence.
External observers, though, are not limited to those from Europe and America. There have been Africans and institutions from the continent who equally adopt the restrictive approaches of the West for electoral observation and equally pretend that they are able to make authoritative pronouncements on elections.
Debate on the relevance of election observation has been going on for a while. The focus then was on the ill-preparedness of external observers who rush in, making pronouncements on the outcome of the polls and having just spent barely 24 hours in the country. Even a two-week stay may not be enough for one to understand all that is goi
ng on, especially before the day of the elections.
Kenya’s 2007 elections led to much rethink. Many lives were wantonly lost in spite of the presence of international observers. Clearly, they had been unable to learn from the incumbent government’s determination to keep President Mwai Kibaki in power at all costs.
This was when international election observers started justifying the need for a longer stay before and after an election. However, has a longer stay in a country helped in handling misgivings and reducing violent reactions to election results in Africa?
Definitely, but each case would need a detailed assessment. It seems the integrity of the leadership of the electoral bodies in Tunisia, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and The Gambia has weighed more positively on the outcome than the presence of electoral tourists paid for with funds from the West.
In Kenya, although electoral observer missions were many, with credible leaders from Africa, Europe and America, they failed woefully to prevent deaths in the aftermath of the elections of August 8, 2017. They wittingly or unwittingly endorsed a well-orchestrated fraudulent electoral process that was structurally flawed.
In spite of many of the missions being in the country for long, they failed to pay enough attention to many tell-tale signs around them. These included many opposition-led court cases aimed at upholding the constitutional prescriptions for credible elections as well as the assassination of Chris Msando. His death should have led to an assessment of the readiness of Kenya to electronically transmit results collated at the constituency level, as indicated by the Kenyan Court of Appeal.
It is quite difficult to understand why most of what were likely to compromise the integrity of the elections were not picked up earlier by the observers. Those from the Carter Centre, for example, were quicker than others to have a rethink. But many held on doggedly to their position that the elections had been free, fair and credible until the Supreme Court of Kenya ruled otherwise. This was a clear lesson for Africa and the US, if not the entire world, that a bold and credible judiciary is needed for free, fair and credible elections.
The court’s conclusion that there had been irregularities and illegalities clearly exposed the reluctance of many of these electoral tourists to listen to the warnings from opposition and civil society groups. For them, election observation by foreigners was a waste of money.
If the electoral tourists had not emboldened the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) with their hasty and short-sighted statements, it would not have dared to make a declaration that President Uhuru Kenyatta had been duly elected
for another term. Lives lost in reaction to the IEBC’s declaration would otherwise have been saved.
An opposition candidate had called a press conference at which he stated that the results streaming on TV were pre-programmed from hacked sources. He also held meetings with the different international observers, pleading with them to be circumspect in their conclusions.
He even said that if there was no evidence of hacking, he would be prepared to concede defeat.
Observers like John Kerry, the former US Secretary of State, would not have any of it. The electoral tourists should have shown integrity by telling the world that the complaints of the opposition, within hours of the polling, needed to be looked into first before they could make statements beyond the fact that voting was orderly.
The Chairman of the IEBC who had initially promised that there would be no pronunciation of results, until all paper forms had been received, would not have been rushed into making a false declaration that was a result of irregularities and illegalities.
The patronising manner in which electoral observers intentionally or inadvertently have been bungling in Africa needs to be faced squarely. Who or which organisations from Africa went to certify the election of President Donald Trump in the US?
If the presence of external electoral observation is not helping ordinary Africans in freely choosing their own leaders and also saving lives, what is the point of continuing to have them?
Kenya presents several lessons for international election observation. Most important, is for introspection and caution when pronouncing on election outcomes. These foreign observers must pay more attention to statements of concern from opposition politicians.
Unless the incumbent government allows transparent access to the full election process, there should be no categorical determination by external observers. The template now calls for radical change, given that the Kenyan judiciary has dented the reputation of international observation.
Babafemi A. Badejo is a former Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia and currently, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Chrisland University in Abeokuta, Nigeria
Nana K. A. Busia Jr., is a former Senior Legal & Policy Advisor, UN, currently Research Fellow, Public International Law at the School of Advanced Study, University of London
This article first appeared in the September-October 2022 edition of Africa Briefing Magazine
