Project

Electoral Justice Principles for Trust in the Electoral Process in Ghana, Kenya, Sierra Leone

Grantee: Tiri-Making Integrity Work

The Electoral Justice Principles for Trust in the Electoral Process project sought to raise the integrity standard of the electoral processes in Africa by addressing the relations between the key electoral justice institutions and their relevance and accessibility to the electorate. Its main objectives were to: produce a set of electoral justice principles drafted by a group of chief justices and senior electoral and political leaders from Africa and other continents; and support the implementation of these principles in two African countries. Its intended outcomes were to increase trust in electoral justice authorities; reduce violence related to electoral dispute settlements, and to have political parties, candidates and civil society organizations (CSOs) in the pilot implementation country able to claim, advocate and defend rights for public integrity consultations. The project undertook minimal consultations with the large and dynamic electoral assistance sector and missed opportunities to tap its experience, explore collaboration and develop synergies with other efforts, such as the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security that promote the integrity of elections. The norms themselves were not disseminated as planned so awareness of them is extremely limited and they were not endorsed by any international organization as anticipated. Most of those interviewed felt the principles needed wider consultations and did not have the weight required to make significant changes. The project was not Africa-specific and African involvement was limited primarily to the launch in Ghana and the APEJ-SL. The principles and guidelines were global in scope, and were not tailored to Sierra Leone for the pilot. It also focused on general electoral integrity issues and lacked a clear focus on electoral justice and how specifically this could be achieved through the creation of a steering committee.

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Lessons from Project

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The survey failed to differentiate between the five separate institutions involved in the security sector: the police, the armed forces, prisons, Fire Force and Native Administration security, all of which are coordinated by the Office of National Security. The research treated them as one group, which was not appropriate and led to a biased assessment.

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The reliability and usefulness of this survey was questioned by several of those interviewed outside of this steering group. They felt the focus groups were not representative, the questions too generic to be useful, and that it was not adapted to the national context.

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The implementing partners in the project document were not used. Instead the grantee implemented the project directly, hiring consultants to do some of the work and using a few of the members from the implementing partners to form additional groups.

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There was also a large group of stakeholders active in supporting the electoral process in which the project was not integrated. This included the main election group chaired by the Ministry of Finance and Trade in Sierra Leone. There were other efforts that this project could have coordinated with. For example, the UN Peacebuilding Fund supported a non-state actors project which worked with wide range of groups to build consensus for political tolerance and non-violence, including civil society.

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The project hired consultants to draft the principles and held a drafting conference in Bali instead of holding the dissemination conference in Kenya. It also undertook only one pilot application in Africa instead of two. This diluted its African focus and limited the awareness of the principles espoused by the project.

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A number of persons interviewed, including some of the participants in the Bali and Ghana conferences, questioned the relevance of the group of individuals that the grantee referred to as the “Electoral Integrity Group” (EIG). They felt the association of these individuals, who were senior current and former election commissioners and justice, gave weight to the effort, but that more than ‘big names’ were needed for this type of an effort.

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The development of a new set of norms for electoral justice by the project was arguably not necessary. Most practitioners interviewed and who responded to the survey agreed that there is a large gap between the fast-paced nature of elections administration and the slower machinery of the judicial sector and judicial reform, but felt that there was already a large and well defined body of principles that applied to the issue, but which were not labeled as “electoral justice.

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Projects with a regional focus should involve participants from that region and ensure their products are tailored to the regional context. Even then products should still be adapted to each specific country context while reflecting universal standards. The purpose for country level efforts should be clearly defined with well-specified implementation guidelines for partners.

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The Steering Committee in Sierra Leone seemed to work efficiently. The National Election Commission subsidized most of the group’s effort. The project grant was given in mid-way through the process after the grantee met with two members of the Steering Committee that it sent to its integrity course in Budapest.

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Integrity Action was able to find and use experienced electoral and judicial sector experts through its connections with members of the JIG and CEG. This was an excellent use of resources as they were senior level persons whose expertise was extremely valuable

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