The
processes of enfranchising refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) and
allowing them to participate in the political processes of their home countries
are to be described here. It presents pertinent issues, lessons and principles
that provide the basis for establishing an international policy framework on
these issues. The involvement of refugees in electoral
processes is particularly significant in elections that are
held under international supervision as part of a post-conflict transition to
democracy. In such situations electoral and political processes must be
pluralistic and inclusive if they are to have credibility. To the extent that
refugees are deprived of their political rights, an electoral process must be
considered deficient.
Under the
definition used for this Handbook, IDPs are not external electors, but they are
considered together with refugees in this chapter because they present similar
problems and in practice they can constitute a large group of external
electors. The term ‘refugee’ is used here to connote both types of
displacement.
Who is a ‘refugee’?
International
law recognizes four forms of individual displacement that are relevant to the
kinds of election and political process under discussion.
The first
of these is that of the refugee, defined under the 1951 United Nations
Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the associated 1967 Protocol
as a person who ‘owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons
of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or
political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or,
owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that
country’. The 1967 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Convention Governing the
Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa gives a wider definition,
stating that the term ‘shall also apply to every person who, owing to external
aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing
public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or
nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to
seek refugee in another place outside his country of origin or nationality’.
The second
form is that of asylum seeker, an individual whose application for
asylum or recognition as a refugee under the conventions is pending and who
fears persecution if returned home. The third is that of internally displaced
persons who are refugees within their own country’s borders, and the fourth
is that of the returnee, an internally displaced person or refugee who
has returned home but requires continued assistance for a period of time. For
the purposes of this chapter, refugees and asylum seekers are the focus of
attention because of their forced migration. The standards and best practices
for enfranchisement for refugees are largely applicable to both displaced
persons and returnees.
At the end
of 2004, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimated
that the collective population of concern had reached 19.2 million individuals.
Refugees represented the largest component of that figure (48 per cent), with
9.2 million people classified in that category. Ninety-three per cent of the
refugees were in Asia, Africa and Europe, in
that order by size of the refugee population. The rest of the Western
hemisphere accounted for all but a fraction of the remaining 7 per cent. Of
asylum seekers, 35 per cent were in North America, and another 32 per cent in Europe. The UNHCR estimates that women comprise roughly
49 per cent of the total population of concern (UN High Commissioner for
Refugees 2004).
In a 1997
report, the Refugee Policy Group provided figures on the presence of refugee
populations in some of these countries during election years.
Demographics
aside, the circumstances of refugees compel an examination of their political
rights because these rights are often at issue. The political rights of refugees
are defined in numerous international and regional conventions. These include
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); the United Nations Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951; entered into force 1954); the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966; entered into force
1976); the American Convention on Human Rights (1969; entered into force 1978);
and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (1981; entered into force
1986). These documents clearly demonstrate that refugees are afforded full
rights of citizenship and political participation, including membership of
political parties, the right to stand as candidates for election, access to
election information, and enfranchisement.
Refugee population and electoral events
In
post-conflict situations, elections are frequently used as ways of facilitating
the repatriation of refugees and their reintegration into the country of
conflict. The election process serves to reunite a conflict-torn country into
common institutions, incorporating former battlefield antagonists into the
political arena. Registration to vote is also the first step in the
re-establishment of individual political identity. Because many refugees arrive
in a country without identity documents, electoral registration activities that
determine individual eligibility will result in a re-establishment of identity
by providing a system for the recognition of both refugees’ actual residence
and their right to residence in their home country. In fact, registration as an
elector can be seen as one of the first political rights afforded to refugees.
