elections – Integra LLC

Tag Archive for: elections

Ushahidi maps Liberia’s electoral violence

Liberia’s November 8 Presidential runoff was marred by a rally turned violent as opposition supporters clashed with the riot police. The Ushahidi platform, a website developed to map reports of violence during the 2007 Presidential elections in Kenya, was once again in use to keep citizens informed on elections proceedings.

Incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf won re-election clinching 90% of the November 8 run-off despite a relatively low turn out of 37%, prompted by the boycott of opposition candidate Winston Tubman from the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) on the basis of electoral fraud.

Ushahidi provides maps on various aspects of the electoral process, including the violent protests that took place in the capital Monrovia in the lead up and after the runoff.

The rioting broke out after thousands of CDC supporters gathered outside party headquarters to urge voters to boycott polls. BBC confirms that at least one man has been killed and four others injured after shots were fired by the police.

Despite the runoff boycott, Tubman is willing to work with Johnson-Sirleaf’s government.

“I will stick with my party and maybe we can find someone in our party who can deal with the Unity Party government and Mrs Sirleaf to bring about reconciliation,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

Observers, including those from the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), declared the election process to be credible.

“The mission wishes to state that it found no major irregularities in the voting process itself. It considers, on the whole, that the elections of 8 November met the acceptable conditions of being free, fair and transparent,” the ECOWAS observer team said in a statement.

These are the first elections organised by Liberians since the 14-year conflict ended. The previous ones were run by the large UN peacekeeping mission.

November 22, 2011/by actualize

Democracy & Governance, Elections, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Tunisia Elections: Politicians engage voters through YouTube

Tunisians are set to vote on Sunday in first landmark elections since the Arab Spring. Google has partnered with Tunisia Live to offer training workshops on Google tools and social media for politicians to engage with voters.

Photo of woman showing inked fingers, indicating she's voted in the Tunisian election

Photo Credit: Tunisia Live

Tunisia Live, a startup news portal, launched Tunisia Talks on YouTube where citizens ask questions to politicians. According to Google’s official Blog, so far more than 400 questions have been submitted and over 40 members of political parties and independent coalitions have taken part in the initiative.

In the upcoming elections, Tunisians will select representatives for the new Constituent Assembly, which will ratify a new constitution and appoint a new transitional government that will schedule elections for a permanent government.

These elections are not only significant to Tunisia’s political future but their success would further advance regional democratization.

Uprisings triggered by the actions of Sidi Bouzid, a unemployed Tunisian who set himself on fire to protest against joblessness, brought an end to 23-year regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January.

October 21, 2011/by actualize

Anti-corruption, Democracy & Governance, Elections, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Social media buzz about Cameroon’s elections reveals widespread concerns

Cameroon’s October 9^th presidential election is fast approaching, and social media is being used to create a dialogue, raise concerns and share information about the event.

Paul Baya billboard, running for Cameroonians elections

Photo credit: CNN

The country’s incumbent, Paul Biya of the Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement, has been in power for 30 years despite general dissatisfaction and outcries for the president to step down. There are currently 23 candidates in the race with John Fru Ndi of the Social Democratic Front running a distant second to Biya.

The blogging community, Global Voices, is running special coverage entitled Cameroon Elections 2011 that features blog posts from citizens around the world about the elections. The bloggers have discussed various issues surrounding the election, many accusing Biya of election corruption such as paying off politicians to falsely run against him.

CNN has reported on Biya’s “complacent attitude” since he has not been campaigning in the field. His behavior implies that Biya “plans to win through election rigging and fraud.” Youth are allegedly being paid by Biya to support the leader in the streets, and nearly all government campaigning money has been distributed to his party alone.

The Twitter community is also closely following the election, sharing articles, information, and social media tools with one another. A site that has been Tweeted frequently is one that keeps track of the election search trends. Through the tool, anyone can see which party leader or election issues are being searched the most on Google.

Cameroon election search trends on Google

Cameroon Election Search Trends, from http://www.google.cm/intl/en/landing/elections/2011/

Social media has allowed those interested in Cameroon’s elections to share information in ways that were never possible before. But the country lags far behind others in the region in terms of Internet penetration rates. With only 5% of the country having Internet access, most citizens will not be able to follow the social media that is providing critical perspectives on the election. Were the majority of the country’s citizens able to follow the elections online, there might be more potential for a nation-wide movement against Biya and his alleged election rigging.

October 5, 2011/by actualize

Anti-corruption, Civil Society, Democracy & Governance, Elections, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Recipe for Democratic Entrenchment: Expert discusses the role of ICTS in advancing democratization

On September 15^th, George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs presented a guest lecture by Dr. Philip N. Howard about the role of ICTs in advancing democratization, especially in Muslim countries.

Howard, an expert scholar on the role of ICTs in political systems, based his lecture on research conducted in 75 countries in transition. The findings can be found in full in his book, The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. An aspect of the lecture that was particularly fascinating was Howard’s “recipe” for democratic entrenchment – one that involves state capacity and a vibrant, tech-savvy wired civil society. He highlighted the ability of social media to monitor government elections.

The lecture, which emphasized the use of ICTs as a successful tool in promoting democratic societies, can be found in the video below.

So who’s next on the agenda for a revolution using Howard’s recipe? He says to think of countries that have a wired civil society + active online journalists + good state capacity; then watch those countries during the next major elections. If the heads of the countries try to rig the elections, there is a good possibility that their citizens will protest, creating chaos, uprisings, and possible transition to a new state in the same vein as Egypt. Howard lists several countries to look out for, such as Algeria, Iran and Kuwait.

Howard’s research focused primarily on Muslim countries, but one wonders if other countries might fit the recipe for civil society protests and/or revolution. Several African countries have elections coming up. Kenya, which has one of the most vibrant and open technology sectors, but a history of allegedly rigged elections, could be one to watch during the 2012 elections.

October 5, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Democracy & Governance, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Texts and Balances: Nigeria’s 2011 Election

Photo: MobileActive

In Nigeria’s presidential election this April, election observers sent over 35,000 daily text messages to document validity or corruption of the election counting and results. The theory behind Project Swift Count 2011 was that having election observers at voting locations around the nation equipped with mobile phones could immediately report foul play. The theory worked—statistically significant samples by independent organizations verified the published election results from the Nigerian election bureau—indicating that corruption was minimal or nonexistent.

The National Democratic Institute worked with the government of Nigeria to hire 8000 election observers to monitor 4000 voting stations. A parallel vote count was collected and corruption monitored and reported. The observers documented peoples votes, whether they were pressured by anyone, and if all the candidates were listed. Then, the observers each sent a minimum of five text messages during the course of voting to verify the following events:

Photo: NDI

1. Voting accreditation booths opened on time

2. Closing of accreditation booths on time

3. Close of voting booths

4. Starting time of vote counting

5. Accurate reporting of final votes at verified time the next day

Subsequently, political corruption was stymied and the election results were accurate in terms of the sample NDI collected. President Jonathan Goodluck was elected in a fair and clean democratic election.

The project cost around nine million dollars in total, including an independent evaluation of the funds. A group of independent researchers, including Katrin Verclas of MobileActive, carried out the evaluation, and found that nearly all the money could be accounted as originally proposed. These clean results have motivated other countries to utilize this system as well. NDI is currently working with Zambia to monitor their next elections with a similar plan.

Given the high use of mobile phones and the live stream of communication possible via SMS, mobile phones present another solution to promoting democratic elections. And with the spread of mobile satellite service around Africa, this project is scalable in other nations.

August 3, 2011/by actualize

Tag Archive for: elections

Case Studies

Contact Details

Quick Links

About

Expertise

Impact

Join

Sign up for Updates