On the wave of continuous accusations launched by opposition parties and civil society organizations that the Parliamentary elections in Moldova (April 2009) were rigged, and that ODIHR/OSCE Observation Mission failed to do its job, I would like to get back to an article of mine, published by Transitions Online on 4 December 2008. That piece emphasized few ideas that months latter proved to be somewhat prophetic. Among them was the idea that OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights elections observation methodology became an archaic relic of the post-Cold War period, when the West was eager to teach the hungry-for-democracy post-Soviet countries how to run the electoral process.
However, since the mid 90s that methodology did not change, while the “naive” politicians in post-Soviet countries started to use state-of-the-art PR and social engineering techniques, which allowed them to fool the West, ODIHR, and use election process for legitimizing the continuous stay in power of their regimes. Obviously, with each additional electoral cycle that way of running elections lead to the annihilation, little by little, even of the primitive checks and balances that started to take shape in the political systems of some former USSR republics. But I won’t say a word more – here comes that article.
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Elections: False Hope
by Dumitru Minzarari
4 December 2008
Voting is losing its utility and value in ex-Soviet countries as rigging elections becomes routine practice for incumbent governments.
Elections have long been the flagship of the West’s democratization efforts worldwide. The West continues to see elections as a litmus test for measuring the advance of democracy in a country. This view has held even when significant resources invested into the liberalization of ex-Soviet republics brought disappointing results. Save the Baltic states, the rest represent a bundle of territories plagued by authoritarianism and corruption.
The next opportunities to put this model to the test are coming up soon, as critical elections to national parliaments will take place next spring in Moldova and possibly in Ukraine.
The liberal failure
The election-centered approach was perhaps suitable after the USSR’s breakup, when the aims of rebuffing a Communist return to power and of promoting pluralism were paramount. Initially, it appeared that this approach would foster genuine political competition in an arena where no single political group could acquire a monopoly over political power. However, as early as the late 1990s Fareed Zakaria, a Harvard-trained political scientist who has since become the editor of Newsweek International, had noticed that democratically elected governments in transition countries were overstepping legal limits on their powers and infringing on their citizens’ basic rights and freedoms.
This trend had seemingly been foiled in at least a few former Soviet countries. The wave of “color revolutions” that started in Georgia in 2003 and continued through Ukraine in 2004 and Kyrgyzstan in 2005 looked like a ray of hope. In these cases massive street protests and pressure from the West following disputed elections put an end to the rule of authoritarian leaders. But the exaltation over the democratic breakthroughs did not last long. New regimes gradually started behaving in a fashion similar to their predecessors and failed to bring positive change.
That should not have been surprising. Indeed, such an outcome was predictable, for any unrestricted power tends to acquire hegemony. In the absence of institutional checks and balances, the rule of law, independent media, and a strong civil society, there were no mechanisms to restrain the newly elected leaders. It is exactly these elements that represent the core content and the foundation of the democratic process, while elections are only the peak manifestation of it.
Playing by flexible rules
When this foundation is shaky and ambiguous, so are the elections that build on it. Assessing the level of democracy in the post-Soviet area through a lens that images only the conduct of elections will lead the West into a sure trap. Especially because election monitoring institutions have not developed an effective methodology to expose the sophisticated tricks used by incumbent governments to manipulate the outcome.
Compared with the early years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, governments in the post-Soviet countries have now mastered the skills to subtly rig elections. They exploit a mixed bag of options: the sovereignty defense, East-West geopolitical competition, and loopholes in international election observation methodology.
The sovereignty stick has been used with success against the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the most credible and authoritative election-monitoring group in the region. In the aftermath of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Moscow has invoked national sovereignty to strongly advocate a smaller role and initiative for the office. Russia has used the argument that a branch of an organization based on political consensus cannot be a watchdog over the member countries. In 2005 Russia blocked the OSCE budget for a few months, asking for more limitations on the human rights office’s activities. In December the same year at the OSCE Ministerial Council in Ljubljana, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov harshly criticized the office. Its autonomy was turning into uncontrolled behavior that member states could not tolerate, he stated. One of Russia’s key demands was to stop the election observation missions from issuing their much-publicized preliminary reports on the fairness of elections shortly after the polling stations close.
After Russia’s repeated accusations that it was attempting to bring about regime change in post-Soviet countries, the human rights office has seemingly chosen a lower profile. Thus, its preliminary elections reports in Moldova and Kazakhstan in 2007, as well as in Armenia and Azerbaijan this year, were drafted according to a “sandwich” formula. They presented first a positive description of the visible conduct of the polls using cliché phrases and buzzwords: “considerable progress,” “good organization,” “peaceful manner,” “authorities made efforts.” These were followed by descriptions of gross violations of the substance of elections, yet still in softer terms and using euphemisms such as “a number of standards were not met” and “did not reflect fully the principles of democratic elections.” This diplomatic lingo makes a bad fit in the context of technical documents such as these agency reports. It represents the outcome of Russia’s efforts to corrupt the practices of OSCE’s election observation by imposing self-censorship.
The rising confrontation between the West and a resurgent Russia increasingly allows the former Soviet republics to play the geopolitical card as well. In a recent example, the European Union has agreed to open negotiations on a new partnership agreement with Moldova, provided the government in Chisinau runs free and fair parliamentary elections next spring. However, the Caucasus war may have pushed the EU to soften its policies toward Moldova, a neighbor state impaired by the Russia-fueled Transdniester conflict. Invoking the geopolitical significance of Moldova for the European Union, Kalman Mizsei, the EU’s Special Representative on Moldova, has declared talks over a new agreement with Chisinau could start even before the elections.
There are signals suggesting this move is perceived by Moldova’s ruling Communist Party as an indulgence. A statement by the double-hatted Communist leader and president of the country, Vladimir Voronin, followed, expressing confidence that his party would win the March elections. Voronin went even further, admitting in a TV interview that he had already selected an as-yet-unnamed heir. His aplomb is grounded in the experience of Kazakhstan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, where geopolitical considerations resulted in the West taking a softer stance on election manipulations.
Obsolete methods
But even if the EU decides to be scrupulous about suffrage, there is still a different challenge. The methodology developed a decade ago and used by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights to assess elections aims at checking compliance with the so-called Copenhagen document, according to which democratic elections must be universal, equal, fair, secret, free, transparent, and accountable. The approach opens a number of loopholes, defects that “political technologies” developed in post-Soviet countries have been used to exploit. According to Andrew Wilson, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, election observers pay most attention to faults in procedures and are less able to identify the abuses of the political process. Yet it is exactly the manipulation of the latter that can drastically change election results.
Indeed, today elections experts are beginning to admit that it is difficult to quantify the effects that violations such as pressure on voters and on the opposition, the use of “administrative resources,” and the domination of mass media by the incumbent party may have on the voting results. Lacking verifiable data, observers cannot formally claim these violations have severely altered the outcome of elections where administrative resources are brought to bear to exploit a Soviet-rooted mass political culture. However, guesses have been made of a 5 percent to 30 percent head start for governing parties in elections in pre-Orange Revolution Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and in Russian regional polls.
During the latest presidential elections in Russia, to take one instance, there were reports that voters were forced by government-connected employers to take pictures of their filled-in ballot papers using mobile phones, as proof they had cast the “right” vote. Allegedly, a similar practice was used during the 2008 elections for the mayor of Kyiv. During the 2007 local elections in Moldova and 2008 parliamentary elections in Georgia, voters and opposition members alike were reportedly threatened with losing their job and even physical violence if they did not vote for or join the incumbent party.
At the same time the incumbent parties like to boast of the rigorous organization of elections, while distracting attention from their manipulations and claiming sovereignty to preserve flawed election legislation. When even a few percentage points of votes may be decisive it is clear that a new election observation methodology is needed to account for these new manipulation tendencies.
Harvesting apathy
No wonder citizens have grown pessimistic about the use of their right to vote. During the recent elections in Azerbaijan the serious opposition parties even withdrew from the campaign. With yet another unscheduled election possible within months in Ukraine, online debates show a high level of pessimism over the outcome among ordinary Ukrainians. “Regardless of your vote, there is no visible change,” one post on the Ukrainian proUA.com news portal complained.
Recent surveys showed over 52 percent of Moldovans believed they cannot influence important decisions at the national level. This mood could bring significant repercussions if large numbers of protest voters choose not to show up on polling day. Yet that is precisely the outcome desired by the political technologists assigned to manage the elections.
The incumbent parties in Moldova claim the support of the West and the resulting legitimacy to cover their frauds. This is a powerful tool, and when regimes can no longer wield it, especially in countries like Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine where most people view the West as benign and moral, popular unrest can be unleashed. Yet, so long as the West is obsessed with the form and not the substance of elections, incumbent post-Soviet regimes will continue to stage election dramas with international observers as routine spectators.
This article was published by Transitions Online.
P.S. For more curious readers, I would suggest them to have a look on the ODIHR/OSCE Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions. Try also to think why would ODIHR issue their final report, with all detailed observations and comments (including violations that may show the elections were manipulated and stolen), some 2 months after the elections, when new Parliament and Executive will be already working? I have probably run out of imagination, but I just cannot see any logic behind that specific procedure. Well, it has certain logic, but only if there is a will to cover for possible electoral fraud. I am not saying this is done by purpose, but that is the effect of publishing quietly the Final Report on the ODIHR web-site some two months after the elections.
September 6, 2009 at 3:47 am
No more blogging?