POMED Notes: After the Arab Spring: Challenges for Credible Elections

On Wednesday, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems held a panel discussion to discuss the current spate of post-revolutionary elections that have occurred in places like Tunisia and Egypt, and elections that are being prepared for currently in Libya. The discussion also focused on the technical hurdles that numerous countries face when planning and carrying out credible elections. All discussants but one were members of IFES including Nicolas Kaczorowski, IFES Country Director for Tunisia; Fida Nasrallah, IFES Deputy Country Director, Egypt; and Staffan Darnolf, IFES Senior Elections Advisor for Libya. The only exception was Joshua Hersh, foreign correspondent for the Huffington Post. Richard Chambers, IFES Country Director for Lebanon, moderated the discussion panel and then took questions from the audience.

For full event notes continue reading, or click here for the pdf.

Chambers opened up the panel with a brief introduction regarding the kind of work IFES focuses on and stated that the Arab Spring had given way to an “election autumn.” Chambers then briefly introduced the discussants and allowed each the opportunity to make an opening statement.

Kaczorowski made the first opening statement. Having observed Tunisia’s recent election, Kaczorowski discussed how successful elections were and what kind of technical problems occurred during the planning and execution of the elections. According to Kaczorowski, Tunisia is on its way to democracy, but there were still several issues that occurred during the latest round of elections that should be corrected before the next round of elections take place. Some of these technical hurdles included resource management and proper training of poll workers. Kaczorowski noted that in the past, Tunisians had used an “envelope system” in elections but for this election had switched to a “marking system” so there was difficulty in explaining how a marking system works to the Tunisian people. Nonetheless, Kaczorowski declared the elections to be “a success.” Still, Kaczorowski wanted to note that the “situation [in Tunisia] right now as a very tense, volatile and fragile situation. Today there have been some tensions in the ruling block coalition of the 3 parties. There has been some dispute over the extent of the powers for the president, extent of the powers for the Prime Minister, and whether there will be a popular referendum or not.” Kaczorowski suggested that whether or not a popular referendum will be used, the Tunisian government must plan for one anyways, as executing a national referendum is complicated and time-consuming. Finally, Kaczorowski stated that Tunisia needs a strong election commission, which can provide some institutional memory for Tunisia and can continue to work to improve the electoral system going forward.

Nasrallah was next to speak and focused on the Egyptian elections, which she described as a “long and complicated affair.” She noted that elections will take place until March with numerous rounds. Nasrallah characterized the first round of Egyptian elections as largely successful. While there were large amounts of security and police at the polling stations, Nasrallah noted that they didn’t interfere with the voting process. Despite the relative success, Nasrallah noted that there were several challenges resulting in “hiccups” during the election and this is partly the result implementing such a complicated system and holding elections over three phases, and the challenges of implementing laws without procedures. Nasrallah stressed that a lack of clear procedures was a key problem and that for example, the issuing of ballot papers would have been better if procedures had been present. Nasrallah also did state that having the judiciary overseeing the elections is key. Finally, she noted that Egypt’s electoral law is “all scattered about” and often is contradicted by statements made by the SCAF or election officials who are unaware of the laws currently in place. Because of this, Nasrallah suggests that the electoral framework needs to be standardized and reviewed. Furthermore, Nasrallah concluded that a review of the nature and composition of the election committee was needed.

Hersh was next to speak and was present for the first round of elections in Egypt and discussed his experiences. Hersh expressed his surprise as to how well elections went considering the amount of violence leading up to elections. From what he saw, there were no real problems with the elections. While he did note that at times polling stations had a certain amount of chaos, it was “controlled chaos that anyone familiar with Egypt would expect.” Nonetheless, Hersh did see actual lines for the polling stations and even when a polling station opened late everyone waited patiently. Hersh noted that while people waited at one polling station to open one man stood up and said, “they are trying to make us leave by being late so we are going to stay and wait and vote!” Hersh also noted a lack of procedures and a lot of invention of procedure by electoral officials as the vote progress, but election officials clearly took their jobs seriously and were attentive. Hersh said the judges sealed the ballot boxes and even the windows with wax to ensure there was no tampering with the vote. Still, in Hersh’s opinion, this round of elections “doesn’t mean that much because the parliament doesn’t have much power currently. A lot of the activists who were in the protests before the elections, pulled out of the elections and said that this election legitimizes the army’s power.”

Finally, Darnolf was the last to speak about his time reviewing preparations for elections in Libya. Darnolf noted that the mood in Libya is a sense of “looking forward and not looking back…Libyans want to be in the drivers seat as they progress through this transition period and the international community should take note and respect that.” Nonetheless, Darnolf did raise some concern over what he considers to be a rather ambitious timeline to plan and host elections. In his opinion “it will be extremely difficult to put in place credible elections that they wish to have in 6 months…[because] there is not a single election-related decision being made. They have no election law.” In his view, the TNC must do several things to make elections feasible in this kind of timeframe; first, the TNC must begin working on some sort of electoral law; second, they need to create an elections commission to help with the planning and; third, the TNC must reach out to the Libyan community and get their buy-on into the elections and make them feel comfortable with the process. Darnholf concluded by noting that while the TNC had been reluctant during the fighting to reach out to stakeholders within Libyan society, there is no reason why they should not be reaching out now, otherwise whatever goodwill the TNC garnered during the revolution will quickly evaporate.