Nathaniel
An analysis of recent political violence in Kenya posits that corruption and failures of the democratic process, not ethnicity, are driving the conflict. While few readers here will be shocked by this conclusion, the authors do a fine job of assembling the supporting evidence.
Authors Rachel Itwaru and Sarah J. Johnson:Indeed, though the killing has been mostly between members of different tribes, this tragedy is not simply a story of longstanding ethnic divisions. Instead, the conflict is a product of two political factors: Kenya’s historically corrupt government, and the willingness of some politicians to exploit the anger following the elections by encouraging violence.
Full analysis at the Harvard Political Review.
Global Integrity's take: Global Integrity Report: Kenya.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Kenya: Linking Violence & Corruption
Friday, April 25, 2008
Zimbabwe Government Arrests Opposition
Grim headlines from Zimbabwe, as the government moves openly against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and independent election monitors.
IRIN: Zimbabwe: Police Swoop On Injured MDC Supporters
IHT: Zimbabwe police raid opposition party office
Monday, March 10, 2008
Colombia: FARC Involved in Campaign Financing
Colombian news magazine Semana reports that rebel group FARC was deeply involved in politics in Ecuador and Venezuela, citing documents (confirmed by the AP) detailing correspondence between FARC leaders and politicians of Venezuela and Ecuador. Among the allegations: that FARC considered funding Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa's 2006 campaign. Oversight and regulation of political financing in Ecuador is poor, earning a very weak rating in the latest Global Integrity Report: Ecuador.
Quoting the UPI: BOGOTA, March 10 (UPI) -- Colombian leftist rebels reportedly discussed contributing up to $100,000 to the campaign of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa.
The popular magazine Semana said documents discovered on the laptop computer of slain Colombian rebel leader Raul Reyes showed his Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, considered donating the money ahead of Correa's 2006 election, The Miami Herald reported Monday. It was not clear if any money was indeed sent to the Ecuadorian leader's campaign on behalf of FARC.
The rebel group and Reyes were at the center of a diplomatic firestorm last week when Colombian forces entered Ecuadorian territory to kill the leader and 16 other FARC members.
The Gap Between Elections and Democracy
Global Integrity's managing director Nathaniel Heller discusses the work required to move beyond democracies-in-name-only to truly accountable governments, in an op-ed published in the Washington Times.
The Gap Between Elections and Democracy
By Nathaniel Heller
Published in the Washington Times March 5, 2008
Troubling headlines in recent months from places as disparate as Pakistan, Kenya and Russia all share a common theme: the flaws in those countries' elections. Underlying this trend is the opinion that elections are one of the most visible and credible indicators of a country's level of democracy.
Evidence abounds of democracy's fragility or erosion in each nation — from the question of President Pervez Musharraf's commitment to holding free and fair elections in Pakistan, to the bloodshed in Kenya following Mwai Kibaki's apparently fraudulent re-election, to the Vladimir Putin regime's cynical stage-managing of the Russian presidential election.
To state the obvious, there can be no democracy without elections. But what about the reverse: Can elections occur in the absence of democracy? Putting aside the "elections" charade practiced by the likes of Cuba or Iran, the answer is still, unfortunately, yes. As a provocative new study demonstrates, when a country successfully holds a free, fair and open election that conforms to international standards, democracy is by no means ensured.
Global Integrity, an international group we work with that monitors governance and accountability mechanisms assessed 55 countries on 23 indicators and performance categories, examining the strength of civil society and governing institutions, anti-corruption mechanisms, and government accountability. The report confirmed that elections are but one part of a complex recipe for stability and good governance.
In some cases, countries with weak, ineffective or corrupt democratic institutions can still pull off plausible elections. Twenty of the 27 countries receiving "weak" or "very weak" ratings for executive, legislative and judicial accountability — from Argentina to Sri Lanka to Kazakhstan — still received "very strong" or "strong" ratings for election practices.
No country better illustrates the dangers of allowing the elections-to-democracy gap to remain wide than Kenya. In hindsight, the 2007 assessment of Kenya flashes like an eerie warning sign in history's rearview mirror. The ratings revealed dangerous fragility in Kenya's democratic institutions despite the prevailing conventional wisdom at the time that the country was on an upward trajectory.
In 8 of the 21 categories unrelated to elections, Kenya was rated "weak" or "very weak," including the rule of law, police performance and three categories of government accountability. The stage was set. Once the country's election results failed the legitimacy test, its institutional weaknesses helped fuel — rather than cool — the ensuing conflagration.
Nor are these problems confined to developing nations. Last week, Italy's president dissolved parliament and called for new elections after the governing coalition lost a vote of confidence. This will be Italy's 61st government since World War II.
Critics argue that Italy's electoral system gives too much power to fringe parties and too little attention to basic governing. Soon enough, Italy may have more "former prime ministers" than vineyards. Yet the new vote will proceed without the necessary institutional reforms.
Nonetheless, elections matter. After all, dictatorships such as North Korea, Burma, Saudi Arabia and Eritrea, which don't even hold elections, are so tightly controlled we could not gain access to local experts to do our research. And China, the world's largest autocracy, scored in the bottom 15 percent overall and didn't achieve a "strong" or "very strong" score in a single one of the 23 ratings categories.
Every country that the study rated in the bottom third in election practices also had "weak" or "very weak" ratings for the combined 23 categories. In other words, the absence of fair elections and widespread voter participation is almost always accompanied by weaknesses in the institutions on which a real democracy depends.
But this does not mean democratic progress is neither impossible nor destined to be slow. The study indicates that where dedicated leadership is present, positive change can happen quickly. Bulgaria, Latvia and Romania, three former Soviet Bloc nations, captured 3 of the top 7 overall ratings. These success stories suggest that a key link between elections and genuine democracy is the political will at the top to build and nurture democratic institutions that are independent from political personalities. Kenya's political leaders should take note.
Elections can be viewed as a celebration of democracy. Yet too often, as in countries like Kazakhstan, Egypt, Russia and Cameroon, they've been used as an excuse for prematurely declaring the democratic experiment a success. Focusing on the tougher, lower-profile institutional reforms may offer better leverage for cementing long-term reforms.
Nathaniel Heller is the managing director of Global Integrity, an independent nonprofit organization tracking governance and corruption trends around the world.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Chadian Crisis Deepen Fault Lines within African Union
By Thompson Ayodele
Photo: (cc) Mark Knobil
The situation in Chad evokes images of African countries that had similar poor political and economic profiles -- Liberia, Chad, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia to name a few. What appears to be responsible for this plethora of crises has been a constant struggle for political power for groups that had been excluded from the spoils of economic progress and fraudulent electoral processes.
In the last four decades, Chad has remained a highly unstable country. The crisis began shortly after independence. The political control of the country went to the southerners causing a revolt of the northern Chadian tribes against the south in 1966. This started a cycle of civil conflicts, which, after a period of uneasy peace between 1990 and 2004, has blown up again. In 2006 a peace deal was signed but it only lasted for two months. Shortly after, a massacre took place in the eastern Chadian village of jawara with over 100 civilians either shot or hacked to death by Sudanese Janjaweed militia and local Chadian rebels.
Chad is one of the poorest in the world. Over 80% of Chad’s population relies on subsistence farming and livestock raising for its livelihood. Last year, the government committed itself to spending 70% of its budget on development needs such as increase in access to healthcare delivery and education. However none of this materialized. The Chadian government is widely seen by many Chadians as corrupt and has not been selfless as promised to alter the present rate of poverty. Unfortunately, the recent crisis has left a deluge of refugees with 20,000 in Cameroon, 3,500 in
Nigeria with severe humanitarian consequences.
The discovery of oil has not altered positively the lives of the people. Oil proceeds have been grossly mismanaged and promises have not been fulfilled.
The failure of the World Bank backed Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline project valued at $3.7 billion to reduce poverty has helped the rebels to build the much-needed support. The worsening economic situation has enabled the rebels to get more sympathizers. The discovery of oil also provides a real opportunity for the rebels to wrestle control of government mainly to lay hand on oil-related revenue. Rebels are largely fighting for the control of oil revenue.
With the exception of China Oil Company that signed an exploration agreement worth $30million, Chad has not fared better in terms of direct foreign investments. The World Bank has recently frozen $100 million oil royalties after parliament in N’Djamena voted to amend Petroleum Revenue Management contrary to earlier agreement. Prior to 2005, foreign investment in the oil sector alone was put at 30%. This plummeted to 8.0% in the subsequent years. One possible explanation for this is that
investors are wary of the prevailing situation in Chad. The ultimate victims, of course, are millions of Chadians.
It is quite possible that interference by France in the internal politics of Chad could be responsible for renewed hostilities. However, the actual cause of the crisis is attributed to the internal opposition to President Idriss Deby. With a new democratic constitution introduced in 1996 which produced Deby as president, he has in turn been caught up in an executive inertia. The constitution has been amended paving the way for him to be elected for the third term. Again he has positioned his son as his likely successor. Another election is due later this year. A rigged outcome would
of course be what President Deby wants.
The events unfolding in Kenya and Chad are test cases for the African Union over its relevance in the 21st century. While the African Union does inform the whole world about its efforts or steps being taken to end crises in parts of the continent, most often such efforts have failed to cut ice. Condemning the likes of Deby and Kibaki would be tantamount to condemning many leaders who cherish longevity on the throne.
On a number of occasions, the AU continues to display its inability to proffer solution to crises within Africa. It continues to treat with kid-gloves those whose actions are responsible for crises. For instance, at the just concluded AU meeting, president Kibaki actions in Kenya were not condemned in absolute terms for the killings in Kenya. Instead, it was a wine-sipping moment.
It is crystal clear the crisis in Chad can only be resolved through constitutionalism, the rule of law and not through the battlefield. To make this happen, the whole process would have to be spearheaded by the African Union. It must take a pro-active role in resolving most of the crises on the continent. Failure to do so would portray African Union as a body that is always prepared to shirk one of its primary responsibilities -- protecting ordinary African citizens from plunder.
Mr. Ayodele is a Global Integrity contributor and the Executive Director of Initiative for Public Policy Analysis, a Lagos-based think-tank.
Edited by AfricanLiberty.org; reposted with permission of the author.
Image: (cc) Mark Knobil
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Progress in Kenya
IHT: Power-sharing agreement is reached in Kenya
Quoting:
Kenyan political leaders ended a two-month standoff on Thursday that had plunged this country into violence, reaching a long-sought agreement to share power between the government and the opposition.
The country seemed to let out a collective hooray as Mwai Kibaki, the president, and Raila Odinga, the top opposition leader, sat down at a desk in front of the president's office, with a bank of television cameras rolling, and signed an agreement that creates a powerful prime minister position for Odinga and splits cabinet positions between the government and the opposition.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Canada: Cash for Access, And Not Subtle About It
Liberal Party of Canada officials have literally auctioned access to members of Parliament. This from Democracy Watch's Duff Conacher (a Global Integrity contributor), who notes that a "huge loophole still exists in the Canada Elections Act that allows secret, unlimited donations to nomination race and party leadership candidates, if they don’t use what is donated for their campaign."
Read background at the Global Integrity Report: Canada.
Monday, February 11, 2008
United States: An election disputed, but who notices?
Following a caucus vote that will help decide who is the Republican presidential candidate, the Washington state Republican party decides to quit counting votes with only 87 percent of precincts reporting, calling the race for Senator John McCain. His margin of victory? Only 242 votes. But who's counting?
For context, you have to consider that the Republican Party is working to consolidate support behind the presumptive nominee John McCain, a man with questionable support in the Republican base. On Saturday, upstart populist Mike Huckabee wins Louisiana, runs away with Kansas (winning a whopping 60 percent of the vote), and is running neck and neck with McCain in Washington. A sweep for Huckabee would be unflattering to the presumed nominee, McCain.
And with McCain ahead by 242 votes in Washington, the state party chairman stops counting ballots and calls the race for McCain. Why bother counting the remaining 1500 or so votes? Huckabee is contesting the result. The party has since said they will begin counting votes again.
This seems like a ready-made media drama, but it's not happening. The national media have taken a pass on this story over the weekend. Sunday night, the online homepage of the Washington Post carried eight stories on the presidential race. Only one headline mentioned Huckabee at all, and it was the campaign blog, not a full print edition story.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Russia: Election Monitors Pulling Out
Europe's primary election watchdog, ODIHR, is withdrawing its Russian election monitoring mission, citing unacceptable government restrictions.
The press release here.
Media coverage here.
The press release begins: WARSAW, 7 February 2008 - The OSCE's Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) regrets that restrictions imposed on its planned election observation mission will not allow it to deploy a mission to the 2 March 2008 presidential election in Russia.
Image: Ambassador Christian Strohal, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/Mikhail Evstafiev).
"We made every effort in good faith to deploy our mission, even under the conditions imposed by the Russian authorities," said Ambassador Christian Strohal, ODIHR's Director. "We have a responsibility to all 56 participating States to fulfil our mandate, and the Russian Federation has created limitations that are not conducive to undertaking election observation in accordance with it."
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
U.S.: Key leaked for all Diebold e-voting machines
Diebold, a politically well connected maker of touch-screen voting machines used in some parts of the United States, comes under new fire for the lax security of their machines.
Some months ago, researchers at Princeton demonstrated that someone with only 60 seconds of access to an unlocked Diebold box could insert a virus which could silently switch votes without a trace. The virus could then spread from machine to machine, potentially affecting the entire voting system. The Princeton researchers pointed out that a mechanical key was required to get into the box. Until now.
Voting security advocate Brad Friedman is reporting that Diebold has made two seemingly unfathomable errors. Friedman reports that:
1) Every Diebold machine use the same low-tech key to open the door to the box.
2) Diebold posted photos of the keys on their website, which have been used to make working copies.
I am not an expert, but it seems clear to me that a voting system without paper receipts is, and will remain, a terrible idea.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Pakistani Judges Resist Military Rule
Regarding the military in Pakistan, a Global Integrity contributor writes: “…the power of the military has transformed Pakistani society, in which the armed forces have become an independent class, entrenched in the corporate sector, thus, controlling major assets of Pakistan. The military has a strong control over the financial institutions of Pakistan and therefore takes most of Pakistan’s national budget and enjoy luxuries by spending national resources.”
But there is resistance to this power, in the form of a judiciary that is fighting for the rule of law and the constitution. In this article, Global Integrity looks into the expansion of military rule in Pakistan, and the forces that work to counter it. Pakistani Judges Resist Military Rule
By Global Integrity staff, based on the Global Integrity Report: Pakistan
Pakistan has been under military rule ever since General Pervez Musharraf ousted previous Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in October of 1999. In the years following the coup, which Musharraf often justified by promising to clean up the corruption of the former regime, Musharraf named himself President while remaining head of the army and granted himself new powers including the right to dismiss an elected parliament. Most recently, in March 2007, Musharraf suspended Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudry for challenging corruption within the government.
Pakistan is of key interest to the United States because of its geographical proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan’s history of battling radical Islamic extremists within its own borders. The United States Senate recently approved an aid package to Pakistan worth $785 million, $300 million of which was earmarked for counter terrorism security assistance. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid.
The primary finding of the assessment is that while executive and legislative accountability are weak in Pakistan, the judiciary has remained independent from the government and is effective in upholding the rule of law. Media, Law Enforcement and the Civil Service, however, are rated as “Weak” and “Very Weak.”
The detailed findings of the study that are described immediately below and are depicted in the graphic that follows reflect the ratings given to Pakistan on 23 categories of good governance, government accountability and anti-corruption indicators. Those categories comprise more than 300 specific questions scored by our in-country team.
The detailed findings, which led to previous conclusions about the weakness of executive and legislative accountability along with media and law enforcement, are presented below.
Key Findings of the Global Integrity Report: Pakistan
>> 12 out of 23 (or 52%) of the government accountability and anti-corruption sub categories for Pakistan earned “Weak” or “Very Weak” ratings. The country earned “Strong” or “Very Strong” ratings for just 3 of the 23 categories assessed (13%) compared to an international average of 31%.
>> Of the 55 countries assessed in the Global Integrity Report: 2007, Pakistan had the fourth largest gap between having anti-corruption laws on the books and actual implementation. This points towards a lack of political will and leadership in enforcing existing anti-corruption safeguards.
>> Judicial Accountability was assessed as “Moderate” and reflected the judiciary’s efforts to stand up for constitutionalism when the military attempted to control its functioning and decisions.
>> The military’s lack of tolerance for dissent earned Pakistan a ”Weak” rating for Media in the Global Integrity Index: 2007. Musharraf’s suspension of Chief Justice Chaudhry, in March 2007, triggered a wave of protests that were broadcasted on television, the internet and mobile phones along with critical assessments of the current government. In response, Musharraf deepened existing controls over media to “… prohibit the broadcast of programs ‘against the armed forces’ ” (Global Integrity Report: Pakistan 2007: Timeline).
>> The Global Integrity Report: 2007 assesses Pakistani law enforcement agencies as highly ineffective. Law enforcement agency appointments are not made according to professional criteria and are subject to political interference leading to a “Very Weak” rating.
>> Pakistan earns a “Very Weak” rating for civil service regulations because of its complete lack of regulations governing gifts and hospitality to civil servants (tying Pakistan with its poorer neighbors Nepal and Bangladesh).
Global Integrity's Conclusions
According to Global Integrity’s rating of Pakistan’s institutions and accountability mechanisms previous analyses have concluded that the Pakistan’s governance problems lie mainly in weak civil service, executive and legislative accountability along with poor law enforcement and weak media.
Pakistan’s chances of putting into place effective anti-corruption mechanisms now rests on the country’s ability to rid itself of military rule. Successful and clean elections, should they occur, are necessary but insufficient to ensure long-term governance reform, since Pakistan suffered from poor governance even when it was a democratic state prior to Musharraf’s coup.
Lifting restraints on media, guaranteeing judicial independence from the executive branch, and permitting freedom of association can, however, prove to be important initial steps towards a more effective anti-corruption system in Pakistan.
Image: Steve Evans (cc)
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Opposition MP killed in Kenya
Mugabe Were, a freshman parliamentarian, could have been one of the keys to unlocking Kenya’s crisis but on Tuesday he was shot dead in his driveway.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Italy: Prodi out. Berlusconi back?
Italy remains without a formal government (AFP story) since Prime Minister Prodi's ruling coalition collapsed -- triggered by a corruption investigation -- earlier this week. Much of this week's drama can be pinned on a new election law which tends to create radically unstable coalitions. Talks are underway to replace the law prior to new elections.
Into this mix launches Silvio Berlusconi. The former prime minister wants new elections held immediately, potentially winning big for his center-right bloc before the left can regroup. Berlusconi pushed through the doomed election law shortly before leaving office in an attempt to limit an expected win by the left. Mission accomplished, I suppose.
So what might a Berlusconi return bring? In a flashback to 2004, we offer Global Integrity's Italian reporter, Leo Sisti's take on anti-corruption under the Berlusconi government. His analysis was not encouraging:
The current [2004] government has done nothing to fight corruption. Instead, as already reported, Prime Minister Berlusconi worked to stop his trials connected to kickbacks. In 1997 the former center-left government tried to set up a special anti-corruption commission, an enforcement agency empowered to investigate MP's assets, as well as the assets of major city mayors, state managers, and directors of local bodies (regions, provinces and town councils). Rules for lobbyists and a national register of government-funded contracts were also planned. But in 2001 the Parliament was dissolved and the anti-corruption commission died with it, destroying every chance to open a door towards accountability and openness in the Italian government.
The attitude of the Berlusconi government is obvious. Far from rooting out corruption, the center-right coalition instead decided to set up a parliamentary commission to investigate the magistrates who carried out the "Clean Hands" investigations. Officially, the commission wants to scrutinize facts around "Bribesville" (Tangentopoli, as this operation was dubbed by the media), looking into the "Clean Hands" operation dating back to the early 1990s. But the Milan prosecutors are the real target, even if their investigations were later confirmed in courts through thousands of convictions for corruption. It's a vendetta by Berlusconi, who is trying to get rid of the part of the judiciary that he says used its power against him. (Global Integrity Report: 2004)
Thursday, January 3, 2008
The Limits of U.S. Litmus Tests in Pakistan
Internally here at Global Integrity, we've been deeply engaged in a discussion about Western countries' use of clean elections as a litmus test for "democracy" or "governance." The current debate over the direction of U.S. policy in Pakistan, captured nicely by the Washington Post today, demonstrates the limits of such an approach.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Kenyan Election Results Dragging; Ethnic Tensions Flare
One can only hope that clear and verifiable results are announced and accepted by both sides before this gets any worse.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Kenyan Opposition Appears Headed Towards Victory
Coverage here:
New York Times
The Washington Post's Stephanie McCrummen, one of the best foreign correspondent's in East Africa.
AllAfrica.com
Check out the East African Standard's vote tally here
Associated Press
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Bhutto Assasinated
Regardless of your personal views of the controversial former Pakistani prime minister, it's hard not to view this as another blow to democratic consolidation in the troubled South Asian nation.
Coverage:
Reuters
New York Times
The Guardian
UPI
Dawn (leading English-language daily in Pakistan)