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Encyclopaedia   مجالات المواضيع   التصويت من الخارج   The Political Rights of Refugees and Displaced Persons: Enfranchisement and Participation  
Special Political and Logistical Requirements

The political and logistical requirements of such undertakings pose complex policy questions for the organizers of an election. They also give rise to constellations of countries and organizations uniquely brought together for each such event.

Country and organizational constellations

Every effort or programme of refugee enfranchisement will naturally involve a constellation of countries, both the countries from which refugees have fled and the hosts for the refugee populations. On both sides, wide-ranging negotiations will be required. Topics for negotiation include transit agreements to facilitate visa-free travel (if refugees are to vote in the country of origin), Temporary Protection Status, and agreements on dual citizenship. Although standards can be established, there is no single model that can be employed for host country assistance and cooperation. Some parameters are specified by national law and will vary from country to country.

Although voter registration, political campaigning and balloting are conducted within another country’s borders, there must be no violation of the host country’s sovereignty. These events can also be costly for the host governments. Memoranda of understanding are useful tools for describing the roles of each partner in the enfranchisement initiative.

This constellation can also be defined to include the range of international and non-governmental organizations that are involved in the process. For example, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) managed the voting by refugees in the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1996–7, the Popular Consultation for East Timor in 1999, and the external voting in the election in Kosovo in 2000. The League of Women Voters conducted refugee balloting for Bosnian refugees residing in the United States in 1996.

In some cases, special administrative structures must be established. For example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, under the terms of the Dayton Agreement, refugees were given the right to vote in the municipality where they were resident in 1991 or at some future intended municipality of residence. Refugees residing anywhere in the world were afforded the right to vote and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) established the Refugee Elections Steering Group to oversee out-of-country voting. Another instrument required for the implementation of the Dayton Agreement is the Sub-Commission for Future Municipalities, established for the 1997 elections, which adjudicated all claims for future intended municipality registration. In Kosovo, the Joint Registration Taskforce (JRT) of the UN and OSCE has a unit that is devoted to out-of-Kosovo registration of electors. The IOM has two liaison officers working in the JRT facility.

Information

One particular challenge for a refugee information programme is finding sufficient resources to reach pockets of people in far-flung areas. The multidimensional politics associated with refugee voting is at once domestic, regional and international in scope. The information campaign should be scoped accordingly. It must be broadly based in order to reach all the different gender, age, language, regional and ethnic sub-populations that comprise the refugee populations.

The politics of displacement

New tactics in the politics of displacement can develop. This was the case with the displacement of people during the 1999 UN-sponsored Popular Consultation for East Timor. Under the usual scenario, a population is driven from its homes as a result of a conflict. After the conflict is resolved, a reconciliation election is held and the rules regarding their enfranchisement are decided. However, in the case of East Timor, these individuals were displaced for the purposes of the Popular Consultation ballot: they were unwillingly moved from their homes or were rounded up by militias and evicted. The estimates of the total number of internally displaced ranged from 30,000 to 50,000. On the basis of 450,000 registered electors, that could mean that as many as 10 per cent of the electors were displaced. Obviously, the enfranchisement of that percentage of the electorate was an important objective and essential to the credibility of the election outcome.


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