Transcript DEMOCRACY AND ELECTORAL STUDIES PROJECT

DEMOCRACY
AND
ELECTORAL
STUDIES PROJECT
ABOUT US
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The Democracy and Electoral Studies
Program at USP was established in
2004.
The 3 Year (2004-2006) program was
funded by the European Union under its
“Transforming Our Communities
through Good Governance” Project.
Three major components
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Establishing Research and Academic
Programs in Good Governance;
Promoting Public Information and
Awareness in Democracy and Electoral
Systems; and
Establishing a Good Governance
Knowledge Resource Base.
Major short term programs
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Data Collection on Elections and
Electoral Systems and Constitutions
Elections Monitoring in the Pacific and
internationally
Civic and Voter Education for Civil
Society and Schools.
Training of staff of the Electoral Offices
Publications.
Long term objectives
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Establish USP as a centre for expertise
and information in elections and
electoral systems and studies in the
Pacific region
Establish USP as a centre for the
promotion of Democracy in the Pacific
and as part of the International
Democracy Network.
Cont…
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Establish USP as the Voter Education and Civic
Education Curriculum Advisory Centre to ensure
ongoing election education for schools, tertiary
institutions and civic society to empower citizens to
know and understand what voting is and also the
principles of democracy and good governance in
order to become effective and responsible citizens.
Establish USP as centre for networking and reporting
on democracy, elections and electoral systems in the
Pacific and internationally.
Major electoral issues
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1. Electoral Reform-lack of
commitment by sitting
governments
2. Absence of integrated
democracy and electoral systems
with indigenous best practices that
are proving effective
Cont…
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3. existence of inappropriate
electoral systems design.
4. Lack of permanent and
independent Electoral
Management Bodies (EMB).
5. Inflated/inaccurate Electoral
Rolls
Cont…
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6. Absence of Ongoing Civic and
Voter education Programs.
7. Absence of skilled and
knowledgeable Electoral
Officers/Administrators
Framework for effective
electoral systems
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In the Pacific an effective electoral system for
each country should have the support and
confidence of all stakeholders and also be
characterized by the following:
An election system established by the
constitution from which responsible and
respected national leaders are elected into
Parliament and/or become the governing
executive,
Cont…
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An independent electoral management body
with powers to hire and fire, raise revenue
and control its expenditure, initiate reforms,
train its officers, develop civic education
programs after wide consultation with all
stakeholders through an effective
dissemination system to schools, voters and
the public.
A credible, accurate and manageable voter
registration system that ensures the integrity
of the electoral rolls
Cont…
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A system that establishes and promotes
partnership and collaboration with
government, political parties, candidates,
media, civil society groups and voters in
fostering participatory democracy.
A systematic result process that guarantees
acceptance of the results by candidates,
voters and the wider community and has an
appeal system for candidates and voters to
lodge and have their grievances fairly heard.
Recommendations
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The establishment of independent statutory
electoral management bodies as the overall
authority responsible for vote registrations
and the conduct of all elections.
The need for developing long term plans
and timetable incorporating past shortfalls
and weaknesses and positive prospects for
the future for institutional strengthening
and capacity building of the EMB and the
officers.
Cont…
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Recognize parties, candidates, and voters as
important stakeholders in elections and encourage
mutual understanding, cooperation and partnership
to ensure corrupt free and non fraudulent but
transparent, free and fair elections.
Introduce ongoing voter education programs for
schools and communities in partnership with the
ministries of education, Ombudsman’s offices,
human rights advocates and other civil society
groups such as Transparency International.
Cont…
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Establish Electoral Centers that depicts important
political events in the history of each country to
educate and encourage the young generation of
under 30 years to learn and appreciate their history
rather than just learning about the history of
foreign nations.
Develop and conduct regular training for elected
officials, government and electoral officers, parties,
voters and communities on their roles and duties as
providers, receivers and custodians of democracy
and/or electoral service.
Cont…
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Introduce and run BRIDGE Course Training Modules
to Pacific electoral administrators, members of
Parliament, civil servants and polling officers to
improve their understanding and knowledge on the
importance of elections, election systems and
polling processes as connected to Government,
Parliament and overall development of a
democratic country.
Introduce generic computerized voter registration
systems to ensure concise and accurate roll to
reduce costs of elections and also deter voters from
casting multiple votes.
Current Project
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2008-2011
Funded by the Australian Agency for
International Development (AusAID)
Six main objectives
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Build and maintain the confidence and trust of
governments and electoral management bodies in
the Project;
Identify appropriate electoral reforms for Pacific
countries, where necessary; Identify necessary
reforms of voter registration systems;
Assist in the development of civics curricula for
primary and secondary schools; Assist Pacific
countries in establishing electoral education materials
and programs for use in educating the public;
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Introduce/showcase and run BRIDGE Project Training
Modules for Pacific electoral administrators, members
of Parliament and civil servants to improve their
understanding and knowledge of the importance of
elections, election systems and polling processes;
Deliver BRIDGE methodology short-term training
courses to Pacific countries for electoral
administrators and other persons involved in
elections, as well as the media, and;
Monitor and observe parliamentary elections in the
Pacific and report to governments
Thematic activities
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Research into Improving Electoral
Systems and Performance;
Civic Education Needs Assessment;
Professional Training;
Election Monitoring and
Pacific Islands’ Electoral Systems
Information Dissemination.
Networks
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Regional
USP member states
PIANZEA (Pacific Islands, Australia and New
Zealand Electoral Administrators Network)
member states
BRIDGE (Building Resources in Democracy
Governance and Elections) Project
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International
BRIDGE Project
International IDEA
Global Elections Organizations
1. Research
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ELECTORAL SYSTEMS REFERENCE
GROUP MEETING – SCHEDULED FOR
20-25 October, PORT VILA, VANUATU
The purpose of this meeting was to bring
electoral administrators and officials plus
electoral systems specialists together to look
at what current systems are offering and put
thoughts together for future effective
democracy and elections in the Pacific.
Lessons Learnt
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Democracy and elections are sensitive issues to governments,
electoral administrators and officials, political parties and
people. Therefore the choice of participants as well as topics
must be carefully researched.
Consultation with existing networks and contacts on any new
proposal or event is healthy in strengthening and maintaining a
strong partnership. It is also a vital component that will ensure
the sustainability of the work carried out by the Democracy and
Elections Project team.
Consult with BRIDGE workshop participants the topics of the
ERG
Proposals for the future
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Incorporate other forms of consultation/survey into
the training workshop program, ie, schedule them for
evenings.
Make proposals to the PIANZEA Network Secretariat
on important topics on electoral systems to be
discussed at the next PIANZEA network meet in April
2009.
Develop survey questionnaires for BRIDGE workshop
participants’ feedback
Incorporate evening sessions for consultation with
BRIDGE workshop participants on topics of the ERG
2. CIVIC EDUCATION NEEDS
ASSESSMENT (CENA)
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A total of three (3) CENA were conducted in:
Cook Islands,
Tuvalu, and
Vanuatu
The Cook Islands CENA was pioneer and the lessons
learnt assisted in redesigning the CENA Questionnaire
template and approach for Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
There are lessons learnt from each country and the
project considers these positive attributes for further
improvement in the design and delivery of the CENA
in remaining countries.
Lessons Learnt
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Design a questionnaire that can be read and
easily understood by Pacific people.
Questionnaire should have age, level of
education, number of languages spoken,
ethnicity, what type of medium of
communication suits each respondents, etc.
to help project design and disseminate both
generic and country specific civic education
curriculum and materials.
Lessons Learnt cont…
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Survey must include samples from all levels
of the community, ie, urban, rural, remote,
educated, under educated, youths, voters,
students, children, women, indigenous
communities, chiefs, churches, other
religions, business houses, political parties,
government ministries and departments –
especially of education, all ethnic groups in a
country.
Questionnaire should be targeted to primary
and secondary school children.
Proposals for future
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Allocate at least three (3) weeks for
CENA in each country context.
Ensure inclusive national survey
involving all levels and groups in
society.
Involve primary and secondary school
children in the survey.
3. BRIDGE REGIONAL PROFESSIONAL
TRAINING WORKSHOPS
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A total of seven (7) regional training
workshops were in the 2008 work
program.
Five (5) workshops were conducted
2 Train-the-Facilitators (TtF),
Media and Elections,
Civic Education
Gender and Elections.
Output
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114 participants from around the Pacific
were trained.
39 participants of the TtF became semi
accredited facilitators,
7 participants received full
accreditation, and
2 accredited active facilitators were
promoted to Level One.
Lessons Learnt
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Seven (7) regional workshops in six (6) months is too many, too
costly and time consuming for three (3) member team to
effectively and efficiently deliver in other four areas of the
project.
Conduct of national workshops will build capacity of more
people in country both in terms of upgrading and accrediting
facilitators and exposing more people to BRIDGE methodology
and also training in democracy and electoral governance.
Use of accredited BRIDGE facilitators outside of Democracy and
Elections Project is costly.
Proposals for future
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Conduct only one training workshop every three
months.
Conduct national or sub-regional training workshop
rather than regional ones.
National training should be linked to needs identified
by each country during BRIDGE scoping mission,
from CENA and also election observation reports.
Secure accredited expert facilitators 6-12 months
before each training.
Build facilitator capacity in the project.
4. ELECTION MONITORING
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Amongst the USP Member countries Tonga had general elections in April,
Niue in May and Vanuatu in September
Pacific region under the PIANZEA
Network (USP became a member in
2005) other elections due in 2008 were
New Zealand, Palau, Guam and other
US territories.
Lessons Learnt
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The USP Democracy and Elections Project team is too
small to be able to conduct a fair observation or
monitoring mechanism of the election process in
each country.
Use existing domestic in-country networks to monitor
the election process.
Election management bodies in the Pacific share
generic problems, many are administrative and thus
do not require legal redress. There is so much to
share and actually learn from each other by visiting
and observing and learning from what the others do
effectively to strengthen their own.
Proposals for future
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Develop a network of domestic monitors or observers for
monitoring the processes of elections through partnership with
USP campuses or centers, ombudsman offices, branches of
Transparency International and other civil society groups in each
country.
Partnerships should be negotiated and established at least 6-12
months before the election year so that domestic monitors or
observers could be selected and trained.
Invite three members of the election management body to
observe the polling process with the USP Democracy and
Elections Project to be the secretariat at least 5 months before
the election month.
5. PACIFIC ISLANDS ELECTORAL SYSTEMS
INFORMATION DISSEMINATION (PIESID)
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The primary objective of this activity is
to store data on Pacific Islands’ electoral
systems in the appropriate section of
the “Governance Portal” which has been
developed by the Governance Program
in the School of Governance and
Development Studies.
Types information/data
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Election Results of all elections held so far in their
country – soft copies if available or national/other
websites that the Democracy & Elections Project
team can access results from;
Election Reports (both Electoral Commission ,
domestic and international observer reports or
other reports) of all elections held so far in their
country – soft copies if available or national/other
websites that the Democracy & Elections Project
team can access reports from;
Cont…
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Constitutions and Electoral Acts plus all
amendments and all regulations to date –
hard copies if available or national/other
websites that the Democracy & Elections
Project team can access these documents
from;
Party posters, policy platforms, etc.
Full package of your country’s Voter
Education curriculum, materials, brochures,
posters, video, DVD, Liftouts, etc.
Lessons Learnt
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1. Because of the lack of permanent
and independent Electoral Management
Bodies (EMBs) and electoral staff
throughout the Pacific region, more
concerted efforts must be made to
retrieve information/data and materials
and to store them on the Governance
Portal using both formal and informal
networks.
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2. There is a need for EMBs around the
Pacific to update their own electoral
data/information and be more
information access-friendly. The need
for FOI legislation in this regard cannot
be over- emphasized as this will
greatly enhance information/data
gathering efforts by the Project team.
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3. Gaining the trust and confidence of
EMB officials and government officials in
the Pacific region through networking,
training and advocacy will help to
strengthen the Project teams’
sustainable efforts at retrieving
information/data and materials and at
building the electoral database for the
region.
Proposals for future
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1. Use networks, both formal and informal, to
sustain the Project team’s efforts at
information gathering in 2009 by visiting
EMBs, writing to the heads of EMBs again,
following up and soliciting the assistance of
EMB staff that have attended this year’s
BRIDGE trainings/workshops and also those
that will attend the two BRIDGE foundation
modules scheduled for 2009, and through
other means.
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2. Allocate more time and resources to focus
on and consolidate this activity in 2009. This
year, the BRIDGE training workshops utilized
a considerable amount of the Project team’s
time, resources and energy, resulting in the
neglect of other activities. Being understaffed
also was a major contributing factor to the
inability of the Project team in meeting all the
expected outputs/outcomes.
Conclusion
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The period July to December 2008 has been
busy for the Democracy and Elections Project
team in terms of planning, administering and
delivering regional BRIDGE professional
training, undertaking Civic Education Needs
Assessment (CENA), Election Monitoring and
also attempting to collect and compile
electoral data for dissemination via website.
Despite many challenges, the team was able
to accomplish the completion of most of the
target activities.