Post-conflict Elections Research Articles

Rogue incumbents, donor assistance and Sierra Leone's second post-conflict elections of 2007

ABSTRACTThe removal of the governing Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) from power through the ballot box in 2007 represents a watershed moment in the growth and maturation of Sierra Leone's teething electoral democracy. This is because the peaceful alternation of political parties in power tends to strengthen democracy and nurture public confidence in elections as mechanisms of political change. In contrast to what happened in 1967, when the SLPP derailed the country's first post-independence democratic experiment by orchestrating a military coup after losing power in parliamentary elections, the SLPP in 2007 found itself isolated both internally and externally, and could rely neither on the support of a restructured army and police nor on external patrons like the United Kingdom which, among other things, suspended budgetary support for the government pending the satisfactory conclusion of the elections. The emergence of the People's Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), whose membership consists largely of disaffected former SLPP members and supporters, and the electoral alliance forged between the PMDC and the All People's Congress (APC) in the presidential run-off, doomed any chance the SLPP may have had of holding on to power. The elections were referenda on the SLPP, which lost both the presidency and the legislature because its rogue leadership squandered the goodwill of the public, misappropriated donor funds with impunity, and failed to deliver basic social goods and services.

Post-Conflict Risks

Post-conflict societies face two distinctive challenges: economic recovery and reduction of the risk of a recurring conflict. Aid and policy reforms have been found to be effective in economic recovery. In this article, the authors concentrate on the other challenge — risk reduction. The post-conflict peace is typically fragile: nearly half of all civil wars are due to post-conflict relapses. The authors find that economic development substantially reduces risks, but it takes a long time. They also find evidence that UN peacekeeping expenditures significantly reduce the risk of renewed war. The effect is large: doubling expenditure reduces the risk from 40% to 31%. In contrast to these results, the authors cannot find any systematic influence of elections on the reduction of war risk. Therefore, post-conflict elections should be promoted as intrinsically desirable rather than as mechanisms for increasing the durability of the post-conflict peace. Based on these results, the authors suggest that peace appears to depend upon an external military presence sustaining a gradual economic recovery, with political design playing a somewhat subsidiary role. Since there is a relationship between the severity of post-conflict risks and the level of income at the end of the conflict, this provides a clear and uncontroversial principle for resource allocation: resources per capita should be approximately inversely proportional to the level of income in the post-conflict country.

International Election Observer Missions and the Promotion of Democracy: Some Lessons from Nigeria's 2007 Elections

This article explores the politics and policies that underpin election observation and monitoring, particularly as they relate to international assistance for democracy-building and post-conflict elections. Central to this is the nature of election observation, its linkages with democracy-building, and a critical evaluation of its effectiveness as a contributory factor in advancing the democratic project in Africa. The paper draws upon the case of the April 2007 elections in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and largest oil exporter, that were widely held by international observers and local election monitors to be deeply flawed, but were upheld by the government without any international sanctions/reprisals. The paper attempts to illustrate some of the difficulties and contradictions that are embedded in the election observer mission ‘industry’ as a tool of the international community for providing legitimacy for the conduct of free and fair elections, but which in some cases result in ‘acceptable’ outcomes that are neither fully free nor fair.

Between contribution and disengagement: Post-conflict elections and the OSCE role in the normalization of armed groups and militarized political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tajikistan, and Kosovo

Between contribution and disengagement: Post-conflict elections and the OSCE role in the normalization of armed groups and militarized political parties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Tajikistan, and Kosovo

Liberia 2005: an unusual African post-conflict election

The 2003 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the ensuing two-year-long National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL), which brought together two rebel forces, the former government and members of civil society, justifiably had many critics but also one positive and possibly redeeming feature. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the realpolitik nature of the CPA and the barely disguised gross corruption of the members of the coalition government, the protagonists in the second Liberian civil war (2000–03) complied with the agreement and the peace process held. The culmination of this sequence of events was the 11 October 2005 national elections, the 8 November presidential run-off and the 16 January 2006 inauguration. In several ways, this was the African post-conflict election that broke the mould, but not just in that a woman, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, won the presidential race, and a football star, George Weah, came second. The virtual absence of transformed rebel forces or an overbearing incumbent in the electoral races, partially as a result of the CPA and NTGL, gave these polls extraordinary features in an African setting.

Continuidade na renovação? Ten years of multiparty politics in Mozambique: roots, evolution and stabilisation of the Frelimo–Renamo party system

Post-conflict elections in Mozambique, held in 1994, 1999 and 2004, established a formally competitive and pluralistic system. This paper examines the country's emerging two-party system as an essential feature affecting prospects for democratic deepening and consolidation. The condition for political parties to actually help the establishment of democratic politics is their development as durable, socially rooted, country-wide effective and legitimate organisations. The paper contends that the current party system has indeed been a major instrument for political expression and for the channelling and peaceful management of conflicts. It shows how both Frelimo and Renamo – and the competition between them – have deep-seated historical origins and well-established regional roots. Yet, a number of aspects concerning the Mozambican party system negatively affect the deepening of democratic politics: the legitimacy of the party system is weakened by post-conflict polarisation and uncertain mutual recognition; the ethno-regional entrenchment of the two main parties bestows a communal connotation on electoral competition; and most importantly, the party system remains unbalanced and unevenly institutionalised, with Frelimo's disciplined and fundamentally institutionalised organisation opposed by a strongly personalistic and weakly organised Renamo, which struggles to operate within state institutions and to accommodate internal differences.

Post-Conflict Elections, Peacebuilding and Democracy Consolidation in Sierra Leone

The viability of long-term peace and prospects for the consolidation of democracy in Sierra Leone is dependent on a number of internal and external factors. After two successful elections since the end of conflict in 2002, it is fair to suggest that the country is on the path of consolidating 'democratic gains'. A third successful multiparty election, in 2007, would go a long way to affirming the notion that Sierra Leoneans are becoming comfortable with the idea of electing their representatives through competitive elections.

Post-Conflict Elections or Post-Elections Conflict: Sierra Leone 2002 and Patterns of Voting in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sierra Leone is just one of a growing number of countries that has experienced the current globally popular tool of conflict resolution, the multi-party election. This method of endeavouring to put a final cap on a peace process has a mixed record in Africa. There have been some successes, but the installation of unsuitable over-powerful governments and/or the return to war have more often been the case. The article examines firstly the outcomes of the 2002 Sierra Leone elections, and then situates these consequences on a spectrum of African post-conflict elections outcomes. Finally, possibilities for avoiding or mitigating the negative effects of post conflict polls, particularly those emanating from the inevitable lack of security, are examined and posited.

Sierra Leone's post-conflict elections of 2002

The landslide victory by the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) in the 2002 elections was due not to any ideological or policy differences with opposition parties, but to the perception among a plurality of voters that the party delivered on its promise to end the war and therefore deserved re-election. The elections were in effect a referendum on the incumbent president and his ruling SLPP, with voters overwhelmingly concluding that Ahmad Tejan Kabba, the SLPP leader, was preferable to the legion of certified scoundrels seeking to replace him. Signs of the All Peoples Congress (APC), the party that was in power from 1968–92, making a political comeback galvanised otherwise unenthusiastic voters into supporting Kabba and the SLPP. In contrast to the APC, against whom the rebel war was launched, or the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP), which initiated and prosecuted the insurgency, or the People's Liberation Party (PLP), whose earlier incarnation prolonged the war by colluding with rebels, Kabba and the SLPP claimed to have ended a war that was caused, launched and sustained by assorted elements of the political opposition. The SLPP, however, can ill-afford to bask in electoral triumph or ignore the festering problems of rampant official corruption and mass poverty that led to armed conflict in the 1990s. Tackling the problem of corruption and mass deprivation may hold the key to democratic consolidation, but it is doubtful whether the SLPP, as presently constituted, is capable of leading the fight against these scourges. The SLPP may be reaching out to become a national party but it still remains an unreconstructed patronage outfit that is unresponsive to popular currents and mass aspirations.

Election Observers in Cambodia, 1998: What Can We Learn?

COUNTRIES RIVEN BY INTERNAL CONFLICT HAVE INCREASINGLY SOUGHT to resolve their conf licts and establish stable government by conducting elections, which outside observers can verify as ‘free and fair’. The first highly successful such venture, in Nicaragua 1990, was followed by election operations by the UN in Ethiopia 1992, Angola 1992, El Salvador 1994, Mozambique 1994, South Africa 1994, Haiti 1995, Liberia 1997 and Cambodia 1993 and 1998. The degree of stability and reconciliation achieved by these operations has varied, but the recent election observer effort, in Cambodia (26 July 1998), had a disputed outcome, which raised fundamental questions concerning the efficacy of post-conf lict election monitoring.

Book Review: Krishna Kumar (ed.), Postconflict Elections, Democratization and International Assistance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998, 270 pp., $22.00/£15.95 pbk.)

Book Review: Krishna Kumar (ed.), Postconflict Elections, Democratization and International Assistance (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998, 270 pp., $22.00/£15.95 pbk.)

Postconflict Elections, Democratization, and International Assistance. Edited by Krishna Kumar. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998. 265p. $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Postconflict Elections, Democratization, and International Assistance. Edited by Krishna Kumar. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998. 265p. $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.