By Jimmy Carter
The extremely close U.S. presidential election this year brought home dramatically to Americans and the world the importance of good elections to democratic societies. We all watched in amazement as the determination of who would be the next president of the United States depended on a razor-thin margin of votes in the state of Florida.
What was never in doubt, however, was the principle that a free and fair election was the only legitimate and accepted basis for transferring power from the outgoing government to the new administration. Even as the two candidates and their parties struggled in the courts of law and public opinion to prevail, no one ever suggested that the contest could be decided by any other means. America's fundamental democratic principles, so crucial to the protection of freedom and human rights, are not as deeply rooted in many nations around the world, and it is for that reason that the Carter Center has chosen to promote free elections in the last 20 years.
When we left the White House in January 1981 after being on the short end of an election, Rosalynn and I, being relatively young and in good health, wanted to continue to play a role in promoting world peace. Having had the great honor of serving as president of the United States gave me a special opportunity to do something useful and active in a nonpartisan way in my post-presidential years.
In 1982 we founded the Carter Center to work especially on issues of conflict prevention and resolution. We wanted the Center to be a nongovernmental, neutral place where warring parties could sit down together and with our help try to find ways to move from war to peace. The Carter Center remains actively involved in that work today, with a staff of experts in conflict resolution working with me on such thorny issues as the civil war in Sudan and reconciliation needs in East Timor as it approaches independence. The Center has programs in health and agriculture as well as our peace programs, so our motto is "waging peace, fighting disease, building hope." The peace programs address not only conflict resolution and elections but also the need for greater rule of law, anti-corruption mechanisms, respect for human rights, broad citizen participation in national development strategies, and strengthening of civil society organizations.
Fencing With Noriega
Our election monitoring activities had a dramatic start in Panama in 1989. I led a delegation in partnership with the National Democratic Institute to observe elections orchestrated by Gen. Manuel Noriega. After the balloting had concluded and a "quick count" revealed that the general's candidates were losing badly, I tried to get Noriega to accept that fact, but his response was to bar access to the vote tabulation. When the national election commission began to announce voting results, we could see that they were using falsified tally sheets that were different from the originals we had inspected the night before.
Outraged, I pushed myself onto the stage and shouted out in my best high school Spanish: "Are you honest people or are you thieves? You are stealing the election from the people of Panama!" After that, Noriega's troops blocked me in my hotel and kept me from crossing the street to the press center where the international press was gathered. I got word to reporters, who came over to our hotel, where I held a press conference to denounce the government's blatant electoral fraud. Noriega ended up nullifying the election results, but his candidates never attempted to take office. Later, as a result of U.S. military action, Noriega was arrested, and the real election victors assumed power. Had a free and fair electoral process been permitted, the invasion, loss of life and damage, and perhaps the imprisonment of the general could have been avoided altogether. Free elections do matter, and we have monitored peaceful and successful subsequent elections in Panama.
In addition, the Carter Center has observed some 30 elections in 20 countries, and for the past four years, we have been monitoring democratic village elections in China. Working alongside other U.S. democracy organizations such as the National Democratic Institute, the International Republican Institute, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, as well as the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the European Union and other regional bodies, we have helped to make international election observation an accepted norm and a powerful tool to help ensure free elections. But we also have learned that election day observation is not enough to prevent fraud.
Nowadays, attempts to rig elections have become more sophisticated, and thus our observation methodologies have evolved accordingly. We place more emphasis on pre-election activities, such as verifying voter registration rolls, eligibility standards for candidates, access to media, and any evidence of intimidation of voters. We put these under the heading of what we call the "level playing field" standard. I meet with candidates, electoral authorities, and heads of state to get their commitments to ensure a fair election and to accept the results of a free election. We also put our observers in place for a longer time. We had observers in East Timor four to six weeks before the August 1999 referendum ballot so they could report on flagrant electoral abuses that were occurring with the support of the Indonesian military.
The same is true for post-electoral observation. Carter Center staff often will stay in a country to observe final vote tabulation, announcement of results, and graceful acceptance of the results by all parties. Having demonstrated our impartiality, we are sometimes asked to help mediate disputes between the parties. In the controversial presidential elections in Nicaragua in 1990, the Sandinistas, to their utter disbelief, were defeated in an open election by an opposition coalition, UNO. The Sandinistas were reluctant to hand over power to their opponents, especially with the U.S.-supported and armed Contra forces in northern Nicaragua and across the border in Honduras. For two days I mediated between UNO and the Sandinistas about disarmament of the Contras, the future of the Sandinista army, and the status of property seized from the Somozas. The election results were finally accepted by all sides, and Violeta Chamorro became the president of Nicaragua. Nicaraguans will go to the polls again this year for the second free national election since 1990. Countries like Nicaragua are rewriting their democratic histories, previously marked by election fraud and violence.
From Nigeria to Indonesia
Recent elections we have observed have been of great significance to the advancement of democracy. Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation, suffered under military dictatorship after a free election in 1993 won by Chief Abiola was aborted. After the sudden death in 1998 of General Sani Abacha, a brutal tyrant, I immediately called the new head of state, General Abubakar, to offer my support for his announced transition to elected civilian government. He was a man of his word. He set a timetable for elections and complied with it faithfully.
I went to Nigeria twice during the electoral process, where the Carter Center partnered with NDI for international monitoring of four rounds of voting. While open and competitive, the presidential election was flawed by serious voting irregularities Ñ not by the government, but by the competing parties, making it ultimately impossible to verify accurately the outcome of balloting. It was one of the toughest observation missions I have undertaken. On the one hand, it was vitally important to help Nigeria make a successful transition from military to civilian rule. On the other hand, international standards for free and fair elections had to be defended. We did what we were duty bound to do: candidly and honestly describing the shortcomings of the process but respecting the overriding need for Nigeria through that election to put itself back on the path to democratic government. Nigeria's success and its leadership role in Africa are critical to the future of democracy in the entire continent.
The Indonesia national legislature election in June 1999 was truly incredible and equally momentous. The election there literally tipped the balance in favor of democracy in Asia. The civic energy generated by the movement to overthrow the 32-year Suharto regime led to an amazingly high level of participation in the electoral process, especially by young people.
Indonesia, with a population of more than 200 million people and 17,000 islands spanning the Pacific over a distance greater than the east-to-west length of the continental United States, had not held a free election since 1955, if ever. Yet we observed the organization of numerous new political parties and the rejuvenation of the traditional parties. Campaigning was done Indonesian-style with massive, noisy party caravans on alternating days and bright banners and flags in the colors of the parties lining the streets and filling the countryside.
On a peaceful election day, voter turnout was very high, and the conduct of the balloting was quite good under daunting logistical challenges. What was most remarkable, however, was that more than 200,000 trained domestic observers monitored the election in addition to the international observation teams. This gave a much-needed guarantee of the integrity of the process. Vote counting was done in public at the polling stations in the presence of observers and voters. I recall visiting one place where dozens of voters stayed to watch the count, good-naturedly forming cheering sections to cheer as votes for their favored candidates were called out.
Overall, vote tabulation nationally turned out to be tortuously slow, leaving plenty of room for election administration improvements next time, but what our delegation could certify was a striking expression of the democratic aspirations of the Indonesian people.
Indonesia is the world's largest Islamic nation, and it is hoped that its bold efforts to consolidate democracy can serve as an example to other largely Islamic nations in the Middle East and Central Asia. Indonesia also has a history of religious tolerance among its Muslim, Christian, and Hindu communities, but that value is still being sorely tested by sectarian strife surfacing as a part of the release of pent-up social tensions in the country from the long years of the authoritarian regime.
Nigeria and Indonesia serve as good examples of another important point: one election cannot make a country democratic. In fact, elections alone do not make a country truly democratic. Elections are a necessary but not sufficient condition for democracy. Nigeria and Indonesia and so many other countries in which free elections are now held have a long road to travel before democracy is consolidated institutionally and democratic social values become paramount.
Establishing the rule of law, protecting human rights effectively, promoting freedom of expression and independent media, accepting the role of civil society in the public arena, among others, all take time and must develop alongside regular, periodic free elections. This is perhaps the main lesson learned by the Carter Center and me after nearly two decades of work promoting free elections and seeing both international and domestic election observation become an accepted international norm with recognized standards.
Exporting American Democracy?
Another lesson learned is that financial assistance to support democratic development in other countries can be effective and is in the national interest of the United States. It is not "exporting democracy, American style;" it is responding to governments and civic groups that want to build democratic societies based on universal principles but adapted to their own national historical and cultural experience.
In today's world, so different from what I faced when entering the White House in 1977, there is broad acceptance of this principle. In the Bamako Declaration of last November, the Francophone nations declared, "Democracy [is] a system of universal valuesÉ" and to consolidate democracy, action ought to be based on "international cooperation informed by the practices and positive experiences of each state and member government." Similarly, the final Warsaw Declaration of the Community of Democracies ministerial meeting in June 2000 endorsed by 106 countries stated: "The Community of Democracies affirms our determination to work together to promote and strengthen democracy, recognizing that we are at differing stages in our democratic development. We will cooperate to consolidate and strengthen democratic institutions, with due respect for sovereignty and the principle of noninterference in internal affairs. Our goal is to support adherence to common democratic values and standards, [as outlined above]. To that end, our governments hereby agree to abide by these principles in practice, and to support one another in meeting these objectives which we set for ourselves today." Support for elections and democratic development has now become mainstream foreign policy, with successive administrations strengthening U.S. efforts in this field.
The new administration, like its Republican and Democratic predecessors, has a key role to play, because the United States is not only a military superpower but also the leading democratic nation in the world. Free elections do matter, as we have seen so recently in Serbia and Croatia. Helping those nations consolidate democracy and helping other nations, including China, make peaceful democratic political transitions is one of the challenging tasks of the 21st century. By definition, it is a long-term task requiring patience, material resources, bipartisan congressional support, and greater public explanation of complex foreign policy goals.
In this effort, springing from the deeply held democratic values of the American people, private organizations also have an important role to play. That is why Rosalynn and I hope to head a Carter Center election observation mission to Guyana in March and an NDI/Carter Center election delegation to Peru in April. This is what we at the Carter Center mean by " waging peace," and we plan to continue doing this for as long as we can.
Oh, by the way, we also need to improve election administration in the United States.
President of the United States from 1977 to 1981, Jimmy Carter chairs the Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga., a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization advancing peace and health worldwide.