By Evy Verbrugge
In the world of today, there are many countries that call themselves democracies, although they do not necessarily qualify as democracies due to the lack of fair elections. However, distinguishing sham elections from fair elections is not so easy. There are some clear examples of sham elections in recent years, such as past elections in Venezuela and Tunisia. To determine the extent to which an election is simply a charade, there is a need to look at several factors and have sufficient data on elections from independent organisations.
An election is fair when it is both free and reliable. According to Freedom House, a state is an electoral democracy if it meets the following four criteria. Firstly, a state has to have a competitive multiparty system which already excludes for example North Korea in which the only party is the Korean Workers’ Party. Although, this party does call itself the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Secondly, there must be universal suffrage for all adults, which means that the Netherlands did not meet this requirement until the introduction of universal suffrage for women in 1919. Thirdly, new elections should be held regularly with secret ballots. In addition, there should be no intimidation and therefore no vote rigging as well as no large-scale vote fraud. Secret votes ensure that citizens cannot be forced to vote for a particular party. They additionally ensure that a coercive actor can never be sure that the oppressed citizen actually voted for the coercive actor’s preferred party. Lastly, there must be large-scale public access for major political parties to participate in elections through traditional media and other modern channels through which to campaign.
There is not a clear and shared definition for democratic elections, but generally the definitions revolve around the same principles. In addition to the points mentioned earlier, another important aspect is the accessibility for citizens to vote with ease by for example having enough polling stations scattered across the country. For instance, polling stations in the US state of Alabama are not equally accessible to everyone. Socio-economic factors of different population groups differ in many aspects, one being the access to public transport and another working hours that overlap with the time to vote. Black households in Alabama are twice as likely not to have access to a vehicle than white households creating an unequal access between populations in reaching polling stations.
United Nations reports show that the recent elections in Venezuela were definitely not fair. In May, the invitation to electoral observers of the European Union was withdrawn resulting in a lack of independent monitoring of the elections. Venezuela failed disastrously in ensuring the voting security of its citizens. The Venezuelan government, security forces and armed civilian groups allied with the government and arbitrarily detained, tortured, temporarily forced to disappear and sexually abused citizens – and even children – before, after and during the elections. This violence eliminates critics and possible opposition to the current regime of Venezuela.
Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, manipulated domestic factors in order to get reappointed in elections last October. He ensured that all opposition candidates – except one – were in jail or ineligible. Tunisia’s electoral commission ended up approving three candidates, including Kais Saied, Zouhair Magzhaoui and Ayachi Zammel. Fourteen other candidates were rejected by the commission. Zouhair Magzhaoui is seen as an ally of Kais Saied and Ayachi Zammel was given a 20-month jail term for forging signatures on his candidate papers. This effectively left no opposition for Kais Saied, and he ‘won’ the elections.
Fair and free elections are thus not the norm everywhere. It requires constant monitoring of factors that have a role within democracy, with parties monitoring this – such as observers from the European Union or United Nations – being of great importance. This is strictly monitored in the Netherlands, but commitment is still needed for fair and free elections to continue in the coming years.
Picture: Unsplash / Element5 Digital
Translation: Lisa Harmeling
