Election observation is a tricky business in a transitional society. During the last CA election, there were 148 national and 30 international organizations deployed to observe polls. Most of them pronounced the election ‘largely’ free and fair, the minor glitches apparently overlooked considering the enormous odds against just about any kind of election at the time. Although the 2008 CA election might look problem-free in hindsight, that was far from the case.
There was a big question mark over the democratic credentials of the then CPN (Maoist) which had just entered mainstream politics. There were fears it would resort to intimidation tactics to extract votes. There were dozens of armed outfits operating in Tarai, many with the specific goal of subverting the election. Moreover, scheduled election had already been postponed twice before. Under such circumstances, the election monitors could perhaps be forgiven for not relying on hard and fast rules to judge the validity of the polls. Yet it is also undeniable that most poll observers blatantly violated their terms of contract with the Election Commission in 2008. Questions also remain over the quality of the monitoring of some of the more credible observers. [break]
As the country nears the second CA election, the quality of monitoring of the first election is being vigorously questioned. Amidst mounting criticism of the ‘failure’ of the poll observers from some quarters, even a credible international election observer like The Carter Center has been forced to admit there might have been lapses during the last vote, with Jimmy Carter himself promising to observe upcoming election more “carefully”. Incredibly, of the 148 national organizers which had deployed their personnel to observe 2008 election, only 23 submitted their final reports to the EC. One would think the more reputed international poll observers would give a better accounting of themselves. But that is far from the case. Of the 30 intentional poll observing organizations, only six submitted their reports to the EC. This is the reason the EC has been extremely reluctant to hand out observation permits this time around, and justifiably so. Learning from the lapses in the last CA election it has considerably narrowed down qualification criteria for interested poll observers. Reasonably, none of the organizations that failed to submit their reports in 2008 will be eligible for observation again. The interested organizations will have to field experienced candidates who have at least a bachelors’ degree. The total number of observer organizations is also being cut down to a more manageable level so that all can be given adequate facilities and the quality of their monitoring reliably tested.
Now that the country has held CA election once, the criteria of fairness should unquestionably be stricter the second time. During the 2008 election, Maoist ‘terror tactics’ were conveniently ignored (at least in the view of other political parties), allegedly because the Maoists were the ‘darling boys’ of the international community. Such benefit of doubt is unwarranted five years down the line with the Maoists now adept players in mainstream politics. Then there is the fear that the traditionally dominant democratic forces that attribute at least a part of their drubbing in 2008 to the Maoist ‘reign of terror’ aren’t in a mood to take it lying down this time. And if they retaliate, we are in for a very violent election. There will also be no shortage of agent provocateurs that will try to incite violence. In this situation, the vital role of election observers assumes an even greater importance. Thus until the potential poll observers can first give a strong proof of their credibility, they should not be allowed to oversee the 2013 CA vote. There should be no room for compromise in this long-awaited, once in a lifetime opportunity to get a constitution solely through people’s chosen representatives.
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