In the world of electoral system design, there are advantages and disadvantages to the many types of systems that exist.  It would probably be incorrect to say that any one system is “better” than another, because better is dependent upon what your priorities are.  One of the many advantages of a proportional representation, or PR system, for example, is that it does a relatively good job of ensuring that electors’ votes accurately translate into who is elected with less “wasted votes.” While it may be wrong to say which system is better, however, I don’t think it’s wrong to look at a system and question what its priorities are.  Sudan is a good case in point.  The nation claims to have a parallel system, which includes a significant amount of PR seats, yet the Sudanese have managed to create a PR tier that doesn’t actually deliver any of the advantages the system is designed to provide.

From IFES electionguide:

60 percent of seats are elected by plurality vote in single-member districts. 15 percent of seats are elected under closed-list proportional representation. Multi-member constituencies correspond to states, and the threshold is 4 percent in each. Finally, 25 percent of seats are elected under closed-list proportional representation from lists that may contain only women. Again, the constituencies correspond to states, and the threshold is 4 percent in each.

Let’s take look at this; out of 450 seats, only 15 and 25 percent respectively are PR tiers.  That means there 112 seats for the women’s tier and 67 seats for the standard one.  Then if we further break them down based on states, of which there are 25 in Sudan, it leaves us with an average of 4.48 seats per district for the women’s tier and 2.68 for the regular.  At this point, what is the purpose of the four percent threshold?  Would there be any district large enough where winning a seat wouldn’t automatically give you four percent?  I’m really curious as to the decision making process in this.  Was the threshold put in without thought as to what purpose it is supposed to serve, because somebody was once told that PR systems should have thresholds?  Or is it strategically there to give the illusion that this is a real system?

Unfortunately, Sudan isn’t the only country that wants to obfuscate the realities of its electoral system.  The Philippines, which will be having a general election on May 10, also has a PR, party-list, tier, which is supposed to contain twenty percent of all seats in the Parliament.  Twenty percent isn’t a lot, and it certainly fails to undermine the clientelist system that Filipino reformers are hoping to overcome.  What’s most disturbing about this party-list tier, however, is that parties are awarded one seat for every two percent of the vote received, while being capped at three seats total.  It’s not surprising, that given these rules, the tier is extremely weak, contains a myriad of insignificant parties, and suffers from a drop off in voter participation.  In fact the seats, which were designed to be filled with representatives of sectoral minorities, are often just filled with allies of the country’s elite class, further ensuring that the system in no way meets any of its stated objectives.

Both of these examples are significant, in that they demonstrate the many ways elites can rig or at least bias an election.  None of these flaws are accidents; you have to try really hard to make a system this ineffective.  (When you design a system where the Energy Secretary and son of the President both win seats reserved for the disadvantaged, you know you’ve done something impressive).

The election monitoring industry is extremely focused on what happens on election day, but in reality,  it’s the decisions made long before any votes are cast that really matter.  In his book Beyond Free and Fair, Eric Bjonrland discusses the international community’s failure to address pre-election conditions in Cambodia’s 1998 election, and the ensuing dilemma over whether to legitimate the outcome.  While the democracy assistance community doesn’t make mistakes like Cambodia anymore, I feel we still don’t do enough to assess how the rules of the game affect the outcomes.

This isn’t to say that election day monitoring isn’t important, it certainly is.  We need to keep in mind, however, that in this day and age, only amateurs rig elections on election day, real professionals make sure they know the outcome beforehand.

As a U.S. Army Civil Affairs specialist, my whole job is based on the premise that the answer to this question is “yes.”  Civil Affairs soldiers use development projects and aid distributions – mostly on a small scale – to achieve a number of objectives, such as improving relations between the U.S. military and a local population, or enhancing the capacity and credibility of the host nation government.

Most of my experience has been with the latter: in Afghanistan, I worked with the local leaders of Ghazni province to plan and execute small projects or humanitarian distributions based on the needs of the population.  The idea was to enhance the local government’s ability to manage projects and plan ahead, while demonstrating to the people of Ghazni that the government was working for them.

Now in Uganda, my team is again working to build the capacity and enhance the image of another entity the U.S. is partners with: the Ugandan People’s Defense Force.  We work in Karamoja, an area of the country in which the UPDF is carrying out a disarmament campaign that has strained civilian-military relations.

The nature of these assignments alone raises a number of questions; a team of researchers at Tufts University, among others, has started trying to answer them.

A few days ago, the Feinstein Center at Tufts University released a report that challenges many of the assumptions on which my job is based.  Using Kenya as a case study, it challenges the link between how the U.S. military provides assistance and its security objectives.  It asks important questions about civil affairs operations that, in my opinion, the military should pay attention to, and that are arguably long overdue.

One of the report’s main contentions is that “hearts and minds” operations do little to alter people’s perceptions of the United States, which are based on a multitude of factors.  But often, as the report touches on, CA teams are striving not to enhance the perception of the U.S military or the U.S government per se, but rather that of our strategic partners.   And this is usually tied into efforts to bolster the capacity of these partners – be they local government or local military forces – to act responsibly and competently.

I think that over the years, CA probably has contributed positively –if perhaps intangibly – to “good governance” efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere – but as the report suggests, there is no evidence of this.  And in exploring an issue as complicated as DOD efforts to bolster good governance in different environments, I believe there is much more room for input and analysis.  Civil Affairs teams may not contribute to “good governance” in the way or to the extent that is envisioned for them, but I would maintain that they generally go beyond equating good governance with building infrastructure (see p.79).

Which brings me to another point: where is “our side” of the story?  The Feinstein center is doing a great job, I think, of asking difficult question about the growing “militarization” of aid.  Where are the DoD or other reports that show Civil Affairs’ accomplishments throughout Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and beyond?  If they are there, bring them out – let’s make this a real conversation, and give this issue the attention it deserves.

As the Feinstein report points out, over 20% of aid to Africa is currently controlled by the Department of Defense.  With the growing linkages between aid and security, how can we afford not to have more critical discussion on this issue?

Today was supposed to be the final day of polling, but because many polling stations opened late or not at all on the first two days, the government decided to extend voting through Thursday, April 15. I’ll be staying in Juba for the remainder of polling, but will only catch the beginning of counting here.

We saw a lot of the same today as in other days- voters not finding their names on the voters lists, walking for hours from village to village to find their proper station, and the secrecy of the ballot being compromised for some illiterate voters who were helped by party agents and poll workers in casting their ballot. (See photos) The number of people at the polls declined dramatically on the third day, likely because most people who were going to vote had voted already and those who had not just simply could not figure out where to vote.

The enthusiasm observed in previous days in and around the polling station abated noticibly and some voters indicated that they were starting to give up on voting after they had walked to two or three polling centers. When asked if they thought the elections were free and fair, some responded that the National Election Commission had failed them in this election. None of the voters we spoke with said that they believed  that any political party or institution had rigged the election. Independent candidates we spoke with said otherwise, in some cases accusing the SPLM out right of using its control of state institutions to keep a tight grip on the electoral process and intimidate voters. It was reported on Tuesday that two voters killed and one candidate wounded in Unity State in South Sudan. It’s hard to determine whether voters share this view but are afraid to express it, or if they actually mean it when they say they simply disappointed with the government’s ability to carry out a clean process.

At breakfast this morning, we learned that former President Jimmy Carter would be arriving at the Juba International Airport in a few minutes. We drove over to meet him and attended a private press conference, which might have been aired on BBC by now. His remarks reflected the same observations that we’d seen or heard from others- that the logistical difficulties of holding this election resulted in some irregularities. He noted that the 24 year gap since the last election meant that poll workers needed to be trained from scratch, and emphasized the Carter Center’s long term presence in the country. Though I know the Carter Center has observers in South Sudan, we haven’t run into any from that delegation. So far we’ve seen observers from the EU, Arab League, African Union, IGAD, and the Government of Japan. There are also thousands of domestic observers who have been trained by NDI and the Carter Center. Domestic observers are stationary and we’ve seen them in every polling station. Most are very professional and forthcoming with information, though sometimes I got the impression that they were unwilling to speak out on any serious irregularities.

From the airport, we headed out to the polls, this time venturing further outside “central” Juba into some villages. The three polling centers we visited (in the same geographical constituency) had either never opened or opened just for a few hours, only to close again. The polling staff and domestic observers told us that they had the wrong ballot for the geographical constituency seat (a portion of National Assembly seats are elected from geographical regions) and they couldn’t let voters vote for a candidate from a different district. Though it wasn’t clear, it is possible that two entire constituencies were  swapped, which meant either that these two districts never opened or were voting for the wrong candidates. In another case, ballots were printed wrong so that a candidate, who is considered quite popular, was excluded from the ballot and was replaced by a candidate form a different geographical constituency. This polling station was also closed and was waiting for a response by the NEC on how to proceed.

None of the voters we spoke with considered these irregularities to be deliberate, but some of the voters we spoke with said that they wouldn’t consider the elections to be free and fair if they didn’t get to vote. Poll workers said that the election commission would be delivering the correct ballots sometime that day, but didn’t know what time. Most remarkable is that voters camped out at polling stations baking in the sun with children in tow without any water to vote for the first time. While some went home, these people waited in the heat- and believe me it was hot- to vote for the first time, rather than risk missing their opportunity to vote.  The level of frustration was certainly on the rise, but the scene remained calm, likely due to the professionalism of the poll workers and police.

We took a break from polling stations to meet with political parties and candidates to see how they thought the process was going, a luxury of having a 5 day election.  Politicians in South Sudan are quite accessible. We walked into the party headquarters of the SPLM and managed to meet with the campaign manager , who gave us a report of his views on the process. He cited some areas of concern, such as the late opening of polls. We also met with a major independent candidate for a gubernational race who had harsher criticisms. The polling stations we visited in the afternoon were quite orderly and professional, with just about 50% voter turnout for the one we visited for closing.

Towards the end of the day, we learned that polis would be open for an additional two days, through April 15. The greatest concern we’ve seen in the South is the lack of administrative capacity in running these elections, which could potentially open the door up to accusations of fraud. The poll workers were generally very professional, diligent, and helpful, so problem is larger than a matter of training. Most interlocutors did not immediately call the process a sham and voters tended to exercise a remarkable degree of patience. But as they wait longer and longer to vote, it’s likely that this patience will wear thin, which could change in subsequent days.

I’m down in Juba as part of the Cordoba Initiative’s election observation mission. The political climate in South Sudan seems entirely isolated from all of the controversy we saw in the news leading up to Sudan’s national elections. No one seems to care about the presidential race or the last minute boycotts from opposition groups. The people here are overwhelmingly focused on “getting on” with the election so that they can hold the 2011 referendum to secede from the northern government. People seem to complacently accept Bashir’s presidential victory and the SPLM generally dominates most races here.  Based on our meetings with NDI, IRI, IFES, and other groups, the SPLM still enjoys support, mainly for lack of an alternative. In several governor races, independent candidates pose a challenge to the SPLM incumbents, but these independents tend to be former SPLM members who broke split with the party when they did not receive the party nomination. This is the case in Central Equatoria, the state in which I am observing. More on this in my following post. Below is a summary of what we observed on the first day of polling:

Overall, the Juba team found polling April 11, 2010 to be relaxed, calm and enthusiastic. Poll workers appeared to be well trained and diligent, but lacking support from above when materials were not delivered on time when the wrong materials were delivered. The most serious concern raised in the first day was that voters at almost every polling station had difficulty finding their names on the voters list and that a portion of voters may be disenfranchised.

Most of the irregularities observed seemed to stem from the logistical challenges of holding an election for the first time in 24 years. The Juba team observed clear that shortcomings on the logistical end and at the planning level. These weaknesses observed threat to disenfranchise a number of voters if not rectified in the remaining days of polling, but from preliminary observations and interviews were not deemed to deliberate or linked to fraud. The main problem was that some polling stations opened significantly late, or not at all, because the wrong voters lists were distributed. In a related problem, voters had trouble identifying their names on the voters lists for a number of reasons- voters lists were changed at the last minute so voters weren’t voting where they registered and when names were transcribed from Arabic to English the order of their names was changed. Though frustrated, voters seemed to accept these shortcomings because of low administrative expectations; While some voters were clearly disappointed, they still told us that they thought that overall the process would be free and fair.

Some more problematic situations were observed as the day wore on. For example, the Juba team observed an illiterate voter was aided by multiple party agents, poll workers, domestic observers, whose actions could be seen as intimidation/influencing her vote. She voted in plain site (not in a voting booth) and party agents intervened when she almost marked the wrong side. Video footage and photographs available. A polling station in the same center had not opened by 2pm when we left. The materials were delivered late (9:30) and when the poll workers finally put everything together, they realized they had the wrong voter list. They called the responsible authority within NEC, but still had not received a response by the time we left.

I like Texas in Africa’s post also for the nice job of explaining some of the staples of democracy/governance studies – consolidated democracies, semi-authoritarian regimes – and how we can apply them to Rwanda.  The shenanigans described above make it the latter, rather than the former.

The comments also include an interesting discussion about whether or not banning specific parties – Communist, Nazi – make a country less consolidated.

* Ironically, Rwanda is also the host of this year’s UN World Environment Day.

But if there is one thing that we have learned in Uganda, it is that it is difficult to limit expectations or manage perceptions – especially in uniform. This is not Iraq or Afghanistan: our ACU uniform does not help us blend in with the landscape or with thousands of other soldiers. We are often the sole representatives of the U.S. government (and certainly the powerful U.S military) in the areas where we work – and by this virtue and others, we are a spectacle everywhere we go. This does not put us in danger, but it means that we must limit the time we spend on the ground assessing a potential project, for example, so that our presence does not start to raise expectations as well as eyebrows.

This is just what we did in Bududa. Alongside our Uganda People’s Defense Force partners, we traveled to the disaster site and the IDP camps, where we briefly observed the goings-on, and spoke exclusively with military and government officials. In the end, our mission consisted of very few hours actually spent on the ground.

Still, we should not have been surprised to find ourselves on the cover of the New Vision – one of the main national newspapers – the following day.  Indeed, the story about us even overshadowed the story about the Pope’s response to the disaster – and this in a country with a largely Christian, and substantial Catholic, population.

Sunday Vision 07MAR2010

According to the article, we had arrived at Bududa to, “assess the situation and coordinate support.” The words are modest enough, but pictures sometimes speak louder than words – especially large, color, front-page type pictures.  As the UPDF Major General in charge of the disaster relief effort told us again and again, whatever we might do, “Expectations from the U.S. Army are very great.”

He mentioned something else too about our presence, and about expectations.  He said that our response was making people think: If the US Army can coordinate a response to Bududa, why isn’t this or that local or national official doing more?  Indeed, with the election year 2011 around the corner, the pressure is on for politicians to respond powerfully and publicly to the Bududa disaster.  In fact, the politicization of the disaster has gotten to the point where local politicians have been barred from the IDP camps so they can’t stir up conflict.

President Museveni himself has flown to the site, and earlier this week he ordered the UPDF to continue digging until all the bodies had been recovered.  All 250+ of them.  Most of them already decayed to the point where they are unrecognizable to their own relatives.  Most of them simply inaccessible to the hundreds of soldiers who have been digging away at the layers of soil and mud for days with a few dozen shovels and wooden stakes.  In fact, local officials and disaster managers had already met last week and agreed that the site should be declared a mass grave, and that focus should be shifted to the IDP camps. Whether any of this informed President Museveni’s decision, I cannot say.

What I can say is that ultimately we came to support the Ugandan government in whatever course of action they deemed appropriate.  Our mission did generate some thoughts on how US military assets might be of service in the short, medium, and long terms: lending immediate airlift support was initially considered, but the focus now will likely be on planning future joint disaster training or medical military-to-military training.  But here I must limit my own expectations.  The military is not the lead actor in the Horn of Africa theater, and our actions must be vetted through the U.S. Country Team (State Department, USAID, etc.), our Ugandan partners, and our chain of command before they gain approval. It is a cautious process.

Whatever the outcome, a cartoon from page two of a recent newspaper seems to signify that our side-mission to Bududa has become part of the national dialogue on the disaster:

New Vision 09MAR2010, p.2. Caption reads: "A team of officers from the US Reserve force on Saturday visited the scene of the tragic landslide that buried three villages in Bududa District."

Becoming a headline is one thing, but certainly none of us were expecting to get spoofed ! – especially in the context of such a tragedy.  It is hard to say whether the cartoonist is questioning our motives for being in Bududa – or in Uganda more generally – or whether his humor is simply motivated by convenient wordplay.  Regardless, it is clear that the Ugandan public has kept an eye on us, and will likely continue to do so as we continue our mission in Karamoja.

At the end of the day though, our objective is not to generate positive publicity for ourselves, but rather to strengthen the capabilities of our military partners.  For their rapid and dedicated response to the Bududa disaster, the UPDF are really the ones who should be enjoying the spotlight, anyway.