The collapse of Communism and thaw of Cold War tensions in
the 1980s provided a new impetus for election observation, enabling the field
to grow. This spurred, in turn, reflection on its parameters and methodology.
As new opportunities for international engagement appeared in Eastern Europe
and Latin America, the salient motivation for monitoring elections shifted from
supporting self-determination to advancing democratic values where authoritarian
regimes were crumbling.
The Cold War placed democratic elections into an economic
context, linking them explicitly to the free market. Between 1989 and 1992,
many of the largest providers of foreign aid, including the World Bank,
International Monetary Fund (IMF), United States, Great Britain, France, and
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), had announced
that funding decisions would tie good governance to capitalist reforms.[i]
Multi-party elections came to be seen as a pre-condition of economic
liberalism.[ii]
This approach led some critics to see financial and ideological aims in the
decision of Western governments to fund observation missions.
Increased demand for international monitors highlighted the
need for standardization and the definition of a professional field with
specific expertise. In 1984, the International Human Rights Law Group produced
the first handbook for election observation, Guidelines for International
Election Observing. Authored by Larry Garber and funded by USAID, the handbook
recognized that international human rights instruments were vague on what
constituted “free,” “genuine,” and “periodic” elections, and that this had led
in part to inconsistent observer reports. Garber cited specifically the 1979 Zimbabwe-Rhodesia
and 1982 El Salvador elections as demonstrating the need for clearer standards,
noting that political agendas and divergent methodologies had resulted in
harmful conflicting assessments.[iii]
Emphasizing the role of election observation missions in
promoting human rights, Garber’s Guidelines addressed issues such as criteria
for deciding where to observe, mission composition and length, reporting
(including sample checklists), and minimum conditions for a “free and fair”
election. The momentum of election observation during this period was also reflected
in the U.S. Congress’s creation in 1983 of the National Endowment for
Democracy. The National Democratic Institute (NDI) and International Republican
Institute (IRI), two of its four original grantees, sought to develop
significant election observation programs.
The U.N. had continued to supervise and observe elections
since Togoland in 1958 under mandates from the General Assembly, Security
Council, or Trusteeship Council.[iv]
Yet by 1989, when it supervised elections in Namibia, it was inaugurating a new
phase of engagement in democracy-building that was broader than its previous
focus on decolonization. A year earlier, the U.N. General Assembly issued a
resolution entitled “Efforts of Governments to Promote or Consolidate New or
Restored Democracies.” U.N. observation in Nicaragua in February 1990 and in
Haiti in 1991 solidified the reversal in the body’s previous position that it
would only be involved in elections where a threat to internal peace existed.
Instead, it also would pursue democratization directly.[v]
Growing U.N. and international interest led to the designation in 1991 of the
Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs as a focal point for electoral
assistance and the creation of the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division (UNEAD)
to support that work.[vi]
Simultaneously, the Conference for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (CSCE), predecessor of the Organization for Security and Co-operation
in Europe (OSCE), began discussions of deploying observers. Its 1989 Conference
on the Human Dimension of Security precipitated an important precedent, whereby
CSCE member states agreed in June 1990 to issue a collective standing
invitation to observers for all future elections.[vii]
The following year, CSCE established an Office of Free Elections (now Office of
Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)) to meet this demand. In the
Western Hemisphere, the end of the Cold War provided an opening for the OAS
General Assembly to recommend in 1989 that the body send observers to any
member state that requested them.[viii]
At the same time, the Commonwealth Secretariat began monitoring elections with
a new focus on national contests rather than on territories seeking
independence, and the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union)
made its first foray into observation during Namibia’s 1989 elections in
concert with the U.N.[ix]
This formative period saw groups experimenting with closer
collaboration, testing new methodologies, and setting precedents for observer
conduct. In 1989, NDI and IRI, along with The Carter Center’s Council of Freely
Elected Heads of Government, jointly deployed a mission to Panama led by former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter.[x]
This marked Carter’s debut in election observation, a field in which The Carter
Center would become a leader over the next decade. In the run-up to the
election, Carter resisted attempts by military strongman Manuel Noriega and his
presidential designee, Carlos Duque, to restrict the mission to a symbolic
delegation consisting of President and Mrs. Carter, former U.S. President
Gerald Ford, and three staff. By threatening to skip the election altogether if
the Panamanian government did not yield to the observer organizations’
conditions for a larger, professional mission, Eric Bjornlund notes, President
Carter established a new standard of independence for election observation. [xi]
This autonomous model contrasted with the common practice in the 1980s of
foreign governments sending official delegations to observe and reaffirm
relations between countries. As Garber noted in his 1984 handbook, “their
primary purpose often [was] to signify support for the electoral process.”[xii]
Carter’s position was also at odds with another partisan model, employed in
Panama during the same election: A coalition of domestic opposition groups, the
Committee to Support International Observers, hosted and even paid the stipends
of 270 international observers.[xiii]
The joint mission to Panama demonstrated observers’ growing
influence over the international community’s perceptions of electoral processes.
The mission’s widely publicized denunciation of the government’s falsification
of results, followed by nullification of the elections, was based on a parallel
vote tabulation (PVT), which showed a substantial opposition victory.[xiv]
“The effective repression of the democratic impulses of the Panamanian people,”
the final report noted, “provides encouragement to those governments in the
region and beyond who cling to power, despite the contrary aspirations of the
majority of their people.”[xv]
While Carter was unable to broker a peaceful resolution to the electoral
conflict, the mission’s findings helped catalyze global condemnation of
Noriega’s rule.
[i]
Kelley, Monitoring Democracy, 29.
[ii]
Gisela Geisler, “Fair? What
Has Fairness Got to Do With It? Vagaries of Election Observations and
Democratic Standards,” Journal
of Modern African Studies 31, no. 4 (1993): 630-1, doi: 10.1017/S0022278X00012271.
[iii]
Larry Garber, Guidelines
for International Election Observing (Washington, DC: International Human Rights Law Group, 1984), i.
[iv]
Bjornlund, Beyond Free and Fair, 55.
[vi]
U.N. General Assembly, Enhancing
the Effectiveness of the Principle of Periodic and Genuine Elections, A/RES/46/137 (New York: United Nations, 1991).
[vii]
Kelley, Monitoring Democracy, 16.
[viii]
OAS General Assembly, “Human
Rights and Electoral Monitoring,”
AG/RES. 991 (XIX-O/89), Nineteenth Regular Session, Washington, D.C., November
13-18, 1989: Proceedings (Washington, D.C.: Organization of American States
General Secretariat), 37.
[ix]
Kelley, Monitoring Democracy, 37.
[x]
The Carter Center engaged in efforts
to avert electoral conflict prior to the Panama mission, including in Haiti in
1987, but did not deploy observers.
[xi]
Bjornlund, Beyond
Free and Fair, 77.
[xii]
Garber, Guidelines,
4.
[xiii]
NDI and IRI, The May 7, 1989
Panamanian Elections: International Delegation Report (Washington, D.C.: National Democratic Institute
& National Republican Institute, 1989), 63-64.
[xiv]
Bjornlund, Beyond Free and Fair, 77.
[xv]
NDI and IRI, May 7, 1989
Panamanian Elections, 4.
