{"id":3851,"date":"2017-12-04T08:30:52","date_gmt":"2017-12-03T22:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/?p=3851"},"modified":"2017-12-01T12:32:22","modified_gmt":"2017-12-01T02:32:22","slug":"casting-a-shadow-of-doubt-on-international-election-monitoring-norms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testblogs.griffith.edu.au\/asiainsights\/casting-a-shadow-of-doubt-on-international-election-monitoring-norms\/","title":{"rendered":"Casting a shadow of doubt on international election monitoring norms"},"content":{"rendered":"

In August 2017, Rwandan President Paul Kagame won re-election with 98.79 percent of the vote. Underlying this landslide victory was a \u201cpattern of harassment, arrests, and detention of opposition party leaders and supporters, activists, and journalists<\/a>.\u201d Despite such misconduct, a cohort of international monitors gave the election a clean bill of health. The East African Community, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, and International Conference of the Great Lakes all\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that the election was free and fair. What explains this flattering, but factually incorrect, assessment?<\/p>\n

An important answer is that the poll was not assessed by credible, \u201cprofessional\u201d election observation groups, but by\u00a0\u201cshadow\u201d observation groups<\/a>. This denotes an intergovernmental organization or international non-governmental organization that 1) has a majority of authoritarian regimes as member states; 2) is not a signatory to the\u00a0Declaration of Principle for International Election Observation and Code of Conduct for International Election Observers<\/em>; and 3) validates elections judged by independent experts to have low or very low integrity.<\/p>\n

The very creation of these shadow observation groups is indicative of how authoritarian regimes have taken advantage of existing international norms\u2014in this case, around external election observation\u2014to advance their own interests. Beyond Rwanda, these shadow groups have been deployed in Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cambodia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Uganda, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe. This list is not exhaustive. Beyond the impact in individual countries, this practice contributes to the cumulative corrosion of the international observation norm, weakening its value and credibility as a guarantor of democratic processes.<\/p>\n

Please click here to read the full\u00a0\u201cCasting a shadow of doubt on international election monitoring norms<\/a>\u201d\u00a0article published at Power 3.0,\u00a0National Endowment for Democracy written by Griffith Asia Institute member, Dr Lee Morgenbesser.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In August 2017, Rwandan President Paul Kagame won re-election with 98.79 percent of the vote. Underlying this landslide victory was a \u201cpattern of harassment, arrests, and detention of opposition party leaders and supporters, activists, and journalists.\u201d Despite such misconduct, a cohort of international monitors gave the election a clean bill of health. The East AfricanContinue reading “Casting a shadow of doubt on international election monitoring norms”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":3852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[233],"tags":[314,644,645],"class_list":["post-3851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-series","tag-dr-lee-morgenbesser","tag-rwanda","tag-shadow-observation-groups"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"Jill Moriarty","yoast_head":"\nCasting a shadow of doubt on international election monitoring norms | Griffith Asia Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In August 2017, Rwandan President Paul Kagame won re-election with 98.79 percent of the vote. 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