Security for Staff

Education organizers and team leaders conducting programmes during election times cannot protect their team members against all eventualities. In circumstances where there is conflict over an election, those promoting it may also be at risk. In educational programmes conducted in situations where there are large numbers of events and limited numbers of staff, the chances of travel accidents increases.

While all programmes should take basic precautions and care, there is no guarantee of perfect safety for all programmes. There are specific needs in relation to security that must be considered in managing a voter or civic education programme.

• In closed or secure institutions, such as prisons or army barracks, voter education may be essential, but the nature of the institutions requires separate attention from the mainstream programme.
• When there is community conflict, such conflict is likely to result in territorial strongholds; and these will still be in place once an election is promulgated. Programmes have to be developed for such places. Some would say that these are precisely the places where voter and civic education programmes are most needed.

Peacekeeping and Peace enforcement

Recent years have seen an increase in international interventions in failed states and in conflict resolution for intra and inter state conflicts. While peacekeeping has a long history and has developed its own protocols, there has been a convergence between this activity and that of electoral assistance. Full scale country re-building actions led by the UN or similar regional inter-governmental organizations are receiving more attention. The cases of Namibia, Cambodia and Eritrea have been joined by Bosnia, East Timor and the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the African continent, peacekeeping and its more recent and more complex and controversial peace enforcement missions are present in countries in the Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes region and West Africa. Afghanistan and Iraq are drawing the attention and the resources of many Northern countries.

Educators are conducting innovative civic education programmes in many of these countries, making use of voluntary associations, expanding school enrollments, especially amongst girls, and adapting or reforming curricula, using many of the techniques and tactics described elsewhere in this topic area. The process of developing and implementing these programmes under adverse conditions may be as important in developing a commitment to democracy and the re-invigoration of a social fabric as the overt educational outcomes.

A more dangerous activity is undertaken when voter education is conducted in insecure or unstable countries in the run up to elections intended to act as conflict resolving mechanisms. While it is understandable that elections get planned under these circumstances, where there is presently either no legitimate national government or contested legitimacy, it is essential that such elections do actually poll the informed wishes of a broad electorate, otherwise they fail even in their limited aims. This means voter education or at the very least universally provided voter information.

In some of the countries where international troops and police are deployed, they have taken on either an educational mandate themselves or the mandate of protecting civic and voter educators. It is perhaps too early to evaluate this activity and to determine whether it has strengthened domestic commitments to democracy or has had the effect of creating a perception that democracy is a foreign or imposed concept. Where it is the only way to ensure the safety of educators and participants in educational events, there may be some particular principles to be born in mind. These are:

• nonpartisanship
• civilian and local ownership and mandate
• empowerment of voters
• non-discrimination

There are some particularly technical concerns in the delivery of elections under conditions where authority may be dispersed in a country between international administrators and security forces, previously existing state organs and emerging transitional structures. These will have an impact on educators and on educational provision, although they will often have no say in the manner in which these relationships are developed.

The experience in the Democratic Republic of Congo suggests that educators can insist upon empowering and thence developing the capability of the election management bodies which are created. This places the locus of authority where it will subsequently fall, and increases domestic ownership. This has some immediate consequences – efficiency of delivery may fall – but in the long run it contributes to the state-building and democracy-creation agenda which is presumably why international agencies have entered the country in the first place.

Lessons in the delivery of education and information programmes in these often unstable or contentious circumstances are still being learned. Some have chosen the centralized media route, others have used cascade strategies to ensure that local education programmes are delivered by local people who have less problems with access and security.

Education In Closed Institutions

All societies have closed institutions. In some cases, these are literally closed to members of the public and to their inhabitants, for example maximum security prisons or asylums. Others may be partially open, but the nature of the institution shields it from general contact with the public: for example detention centres, special homes, hospitals for chronically ill people. Others may create an aura of closedness, which makes it difficult for nonmembers to enter: military institutions, some religious houses, and police stations in some countries.

In these closed institutions, with few exceptions, people are either already participating in society, or will return to that society at some point in the future. In institutions where there is a ready contact between the members and the outside world, education can happen during this contact. In some cases, there may be little or no contact and, while it may not be possible for the members, inmates, or patients to vote in a particular election, it may still be necessary for them to have opportunities to learn about democracy and citizenship.

This section suggests three things that must be balanced in managing the security of programmes conducted in closed institutions:

• the security of the staff
• the security of the participants
• the efficacy of the programme

Programme Choices

Educators talk about the hidden curriculum of schools: what is taught not during the lesson, but as a result of the environment within which the lesson takes place. Prisons pose a particular problem if they are primarily designed as places for restriction and punishment, while military bases operate on an authority system somewhat at odds with what is generally considered democratic behaviour between people.

Because of this, special programmes need to be developed, and a variety of methods found to ensure the efficacy of this programme.

Security

Having established this, arrangements have to be made to deal with general security issues: access to the institution, contact (or lack of contact) between educators and inmates, relationships to the staff of the institution, and their relationship to those participating in the programme. Such discussions should take place well in advance of the initiatiation of any programme, and the specialized nature of the work suggests that specialized staff take responsibility for it.

Using Existing Specialized Staff

Many closed institutions have visitor programmes, welfare and psychiatric services, religious chaplaincies, formal educational studies, and vocational education. Contact with the most appropriate of these is essential, as these are people who have already forged a working relationship with the institution and know its organisational culture, regulations, limitations and opportunities.

Such experience may have been hard won. Election administrators should not jeopardise this by sending inexperienced staff to conduct programmes. It may be better to orient existing educators and other visitors with the information and materials needed and have them conduct the programme on a proxy basis.

Education in Unsafe Areas

Societies in conflict spawn geographic areas that are unsafe for the authorities or supporters of an alternative faction or group.

These become areas where no one can go, at least not without being under threat of attack. In most, but not all, such cases, the borders of such territories are clearly marked. There may even have been a general "chasing out" of perceived aliens (whether as a result of their ethnic identity, political or religious persuasion).

When such a society begins an electoral process, or starts a reconciliation or nation building exercize, these geographic areas remain. Indeed, they may be the most significant obstacle to the re-establishment of peace and democracy.

It is essential that there be an education programme in such areas. During elections, it may even be considered necessary to allow the citizens living in such areas (who may or may not have had a choice in the matter) access to the various political contestants or their ideas.

The political parties and factions may have divided up a country in such a way that they cannot enter the territory controlled by one another. This could be a recent or long-standing phenomenon. It poses special questions for election administrators.

But for educators, it raises a series of dilemmas. Voters require information and education that must be made available on a professional and nonpartisan basis, when the risks to educators and voters may be high. Voters require access to information about all the contestants if this education is to be relevant and efficacious. The very state of territoriality is having a negative effect on voters and their perceptions of democracy, which may be difficult to overcome through standard educational programmes. Indeed, these may be so at odds with the reality of those being educated that the programme engenders cynicism or disbelief.

Life is not perfect. It may be decided that despite the problems (and the problems of educators are invariably secondary to those of political settlement) it is important to continue with elections despite the creation of "no-go" areas where political opposition is neither welcomed nor tolerated.

In these circumstances, programmes may have to be developed that require the assistance of the security forces to protect the educators, and where the educators themselves have to convey political party information on a nonpartisan basis.

In some cases this dilemma can be overcome by the use of broadcast programmes that can be received across any border. In other cases, programmes should include face-to-face activities even in the unnatural environment of an event protected by security forces.

Security Precautions

When this happens, care has to be taken to protect voters on their way to and from the event, and to ensure that the event details in every respect have been approved by the party or faction controlling the territory. Educators will leave with the security forces, but voters will not, and the determination about whether to proceed with such education has to be based on the personal safety of the participants after the event is over. Security for the event itself is the easy part of the exercize and should not be the primary concern of the security forces and the organizers.

In some cases, it may be decided to conduct a road show in which the electoral authority creates a platform for all candidates or contesting parties to speak in a particular area. Educators should use the opportunity to convey messages about the secrecy of the ballot, tolerance for opposition, and acceptance of the results of the election. They should also make handout materials available that are clearly identified as nonpartisan.

In some situations, even education is risky. A territory may be controlled by a faction that is resisting the election itself. Here, a determination has to be made about how the election itself will continue and what security is going to be provided for voters wanting to vote despite the opinions of the controlling faction.

Broadcast material may be most appropriate in these situations, although there may be other information networks that can be used.

Voter education conducted under such difficult circumstances can still be worth it. The presence of nonpartisan educators in a no-go area can increase the climate of tolerance of different points of view. These educators develop levels of trust that cannot be achieved by broadcast programmes, and they form the vanguard for what must inevitably follow the setting up of voting sites and the monitoring of the conduct of the elections during voting time. By being present when political party campaigners cannot be present, they also establish the one presence not linked to the party in control, and thus provide an opportunity for voters to obtain on a one-to-one basis general information about the campaign.

Nonpartisanship is Crucial

Care must be taken to ensure that those involved in such programmes are amongst the most experienced and clearly nonpartisan. Because they may be the only people present, they may be approached for information about other parties. If this information is not given carefully, educators could provide just the excuse a party leadership requires to turn the election to its own advantage, or even to withdraw from the election. This care should include consideration of language: using a familiar term that is acceptable in one area but not another is all that is needed to make the educator seem partisan.

One way to overcome this particular problem is to always have teams of educators from different regions. This has additional significance as a physical demonstration of the reconciliation that is being sought, but it is likely to be difficult for the team itself and such people need special support from the programme administrators and leaders.