Elections have come to constitute perhaps the most fundamental aspect of Africa’s democratisation process, potentially allowing for the peaceful resolution of conflict.

While elections did not embrace the majority of the population during colonial rule, they became an integral feature of Africa’s political landscape through the decades that followed including in singleparty systems, and have taken on greater significance in the politically competitive multi-party era of the recent decades, particularly with the application of election observation and monitoring.

Although inter-related, observation and monitoring denote relatively different technical processes. While election observation is a rather limited non-interventionist evaluation of an electoral process (usually a preserve of external agencies), election monitoring is a more in-depth and extensive process and is often the key responsibility of domestic agencies with mandates to intervene and correct deficiencies.

On the face of it, principles of election practice appear standardised the world over. The European communities, for instance, indicate that “in the case of elections, good governance refers to an appropriate legislative and regulatory framework, as well as to transparent and accountable election administration, including independent supervision and monitoring that ensures the rule of law.”

In the same vein, the African Union (AU)’s guidelines to elections and more broadly its agenda on democracy reflect globalising trends.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) pledges to adhere to “global standards” of political governance and democracy. It is understood that these “global standards” are under-pinned by a set of values generally derived from the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other UN human rights instruments to which more than 171 countries subscribe. It is in these UN instruments that the human and civil liberties so essential to elections reside.

But while at a cursory glance the principles governing elections embraced by various institutions within and without Africa suggest a convergence of norms and standards, a closer analogy of their application points to a tendency towards “context–specific” approaches by African observer groups, a clear departure from practices of northern-based electoral missions.

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) supported the democratic development of the continent through liberation from colonial rule and ending apartheid, thus opening the way for the AU, which is emphatic on the primacy of electoral observation and monitoring as two key instruments for assessing the credibility of electoral processes on the continent. It however, takes into consideration the particularities of each country situation.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Parliamentary Forum and the SADC Electoral Commissions Forum (SADC-ECF), perhaps two of the more experienced regional bodies in election observation and monitoring, both subscribe to principles that should ensure that rules and regulations apply fairly to all contestants including equitable media access, state funding for political parties, independent election management bodies and a gendered approach to political outcomes. In the practical application of context-specific approaches, they both dedicate long periods of time to observation, in most cases covering the registration of voters exercise to better understand the process of elections as opposed to simply assessing the event.

While the AU places great emphasis on adhering to global standards of democracy, it sets its own criteria for determining the nature and scope of an AU electoral observation and monitoring exercise to take into account the unique features inherent in each of its member states. Prior to deploying an observation mission, the continental body requires that a preliminary assessment of the country’s social, economic, political and constitutional arrangements be conducted, upon invitation by the host nation.

“African states are different in terms of their organisational capacity, financial and human resources, infrastructural development, notably roads, telecommunication and technological infrastructure, which have an impact on the way elections are o rganised across the continent. These should be taken into account when forming judgments about the nature of elections,” the AU draft guidelines state.

In short, one cannot assess an election in the conflict-ridden states of the Sierra Leone or the Congo on the same plane as a poll in South Africa, which has modern high-tech infrastructure and a middle income status. The AU emphasises however, that member states must, within their limitations, strive to operate elections that are credible and democratic.

The AU further underlines that all member states safeguard the human and civil liberties of all citizens such as freedom of movement, assembly, association, expression and campaigning.

Given the varied situations across the continent, it is hardly surprising that Africa recognises that applying a singular concept to assessing electoral practices and outcomes is not at all fair procedure.

The arbitrary use of the concept of “free and fair” often defined by a set of standards couched in western democratic practice, is therefore increasingly seen as a foreign policy outreach that seeks to ensure that recipients of donor aid do adhere to a pre-determined good governance template.

While this might have its own merits and may even relate more generally to the “global standards,” it is felt by some African analysts that foreign missions should not ignore the diverse conditions in which elections are held in Africa.

Veterans of election monitoring and observation in Africa agree that each election is different; the levels of democratisation across the continent are varied; with southern Africa largely being the more experienced zone in conducting regular multiparty elections.

“Free and fair is an unfortunate concept,” says Khabele Matlosa, Director of Research at the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA).

“It is not a value-free concept and is like using one measure for all elections. Let me say, it is like judging an apple against an orange,” he said.

It should not be surprising therefore, to find statements from African observer missions describing electoral processes as “generally reflecting the will of the people”, “acceptable” or “successful” or simply as “not sufficiently complying with SADC norms and standards.”

The desire to complement global indicators of what constitutes a democratic election with home-grown ones seems to be mainly motivated by the need by the continent’s highest policy-making bodies to take greater control of their own destinies while preserving, to a large measure, their international integrity.

A trend analysis of recent elections held in southern Africa would suggest that much of the election controversy is centered on voter registration and turnout. The lack of voter and citizen registers that are directly compatible usually means that there are a large number of people who might not be recorded as “dead” when it comes to voting. This either opens the system up to fraud “ghost voting” or encourages perceptions of fraud.

The fact that life expectancy has dropped generally in the SADC region due to AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, means that countries have experienced a considerable shrinkage in the total number of potential voters. The main problem is that very few countries are in a position to know this on time unless they have registration systems that are sophisticated enough to timeously purge dead voters from the roll.

The most encouraging pattern in elections held since 1991 in the SADC region is that major conflict has, to a great extent, been minimised or avoided altogether as a result of elections.

Despite controversies, Zanzibar, Zambia, Zimbabwe and more recently Malawi, for instance, transcended fears of violence, with losing parties opting for the due process of the law. Quiet diplomatic interventions by various regional bodies also made significant contributions to enabling losing parties accept the results or at least choose to take the legal route as opposed to violence.

But election petitions tend to be long and tedious, and an extra burden on the justice system and it is therefore proposed by experts for countries to consider establishing Electoral Courts that would deal timeously with all grievances related to the process.

Countries such as South Africa already have this institution. Other countries are following suit. Recommendations by key stakeholders have for instance already been made to Zambia’s on-going electoral and constitutional reform processes to set up an Electoral Court.

With this added dimension, it is likely that petitioners will find election observation and monitoring reports of better and immediate use in the Electoral Court facility. Depending on the impartiality of these special courts, the sum effect is likely to be a further inclination by aggrieved parties to avoid unconstitutional means of resolving conflict.