CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION          Background to the Study

Democracy has become a major feature in Africa as a result of political independence and subsequently, the third wave of democratisation in the 1990s which swept across these states.1 A movement of mass protests and demonstrations emerged against the authoritarian regimes that had installed themselves after an initial period of multi-party or single-party politics in the post-independence era.2 But beginning in 1992, the democratization process in Africa stalled and in some cases such as Somalia and Rwanda, “degenerated into violent ethnic conflict leading to the collapse of the state.”3 The history of competitive elections in much of African countries is that of violence ‘marred by pre- and post-electoral crises.’4 These crises are generally as a result of the ‘lack of confidence in the electoral process, the agency charged with the conduct of elections, and the election outcome.’5 These crises manifests themselves by way of boycotts of elections, intimidation and violence of political opponents and the refusal to accept officially declared results by aggrieved parties. For instance, Keefer (2002) posits that 20% of presidential elections are riddled with intimidation or fraud such that the outcome is usually affected.

In order for democracy to thrive, there is the need to guarantee free and fair elections devoid of suspicion and intimidation from political parties. For this to be achieved, election monitoring and evaluation has been adopted as a way of assisting in the conduct of free and fair elections, increasing voters’ confidence in the electoral process, enhancing the acceptability of election outcome and the legitimacy of the governments constituted through such elections.’6 Election observation is a valuable tool for improving the quality of elections.

Observers help build public confidence in the honesty of electoral processes. Observation can help promote and protect the civil and political rights of participants in elections. It can lead to the correction of errors or weak practices. More importantly, election observation can deter manipulation and fraud, or expose such problems if they do occur. This is why election observation has become an integral part of the sustenance of the democratization process in Africa. In fact, most African countries have had one election or the other subjected to processes of third-party observation and monitoring in the past decade.7

Having said this however, the pronouncements of observer teams, even when affirming the conduct of elections as free and fair, have not always led to their general acceptability, nor prevented the results of such elections from being contested. A classic case is the 2012 elections of Ghana in which the accusation of electoral fraud or irregularities formed the basis of a legal challenge to the 2012 presidential results. Similarly, the 2017 Kenyan elections were strongly disputed although various international elections observers pronounced the elections as credible. This has raised questions on the credibility of international election observers.

The challenges reflected in Kenya, Ghana and other countries have been the subject of growing criticism of the activities of International Election Observation (IEO) missions. Lynge-Mangeira argues that international election observation has not increased the credibility of elections.8 He focuses his criticism on three main points: that IEO missions are partisan; that the information available to IEO missions is inaccurate or inconsistently analysed; and that IEO missions are unable to detect and deter electoral irregularities. Similarly, Bjornlund posits that “election monitoring programs can be dangerously superficial, which sometimes leads the international community to accept the legitimacy of

highly flawed processes and hinders the search for enforceable, universal standards.”9 Kelley shares similar views. She states that IEO have political entanglements, practical constraints and normative concerns which affect and compromise their neutrality.10

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