INTERNATIONAL MONITORING OF THE TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1992–1994

Abstract

SOUTH AFRICA S FIRST DEMOCRATIC elections have a strong claim to being the most monitored elections ever. This is evident from the number of national and international observers deployed, the length of the period of pre-election monitoring, and the range of election-related activities subject to monitoring. What accounted for this unprecedented domestic and global interest and concern? In the first place, in the absence of any robust tradition of political tolerance among either blacks or whites, grave doubts existed concerning the feasibility of conducting free and fair elections. Powerful voices in the country openly declared their determination to disrupt them. The sincerity of the apartheid regime was suspect, while evidence of security force complicity in the widespread violence was mounting. Above all, these were liberation elections with immense symbolic as well as substantive significance. Not surprisingly, they proved a powerful magnet for the international community which had long felt a deep emotional commitment to the liberation struggle in South Africa. 1 Until the week prior to the elections, the campaign was characterized by violent conflict, especially in KwaZulu-Natal and on the East Rand. Yet, in the end, the very real fears concerning the prospects of relatively peaceful elections miraculously did not materialize. Supreme efforts on the part of the African National Congress (ANC) and the National Party (NP) government finally induced the last minute participation in the elections of two ethnic nationalist parties with great disruptive potential: the white Freedom Front (FF) and the black Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP). Almost overnight, politically-related violence plummeted dramatically. In the process, the course and character of the elections were transformed. In addition to the political context and constraints within which elections were conducted, the electoral arrangements on the ground are also crucial to an understanding of the role observers played. The decision of the IFP one week before the voting to enter the contest compounded the profusion of problems already plaguing the Independent Electoral Commission