Tony O’Doherty discusses his role in helping forge a solution to persistent electoral violence in Northern Ireland’s second-largest city, Derry/Londonderry. He paints a vivid picture of what violence once looked like on Election Day, when Catholic nationalists unleashed a wave of gasoline bombs and threw stones at the predominately Protestant-linked police who were stationed at polling places to provide security and transport ballot boxes. O’Doherty talks about how a locally sourced solution that involved private dialogues between the nationalist political party, Sinn Féin, and the police force, all but eliminated violence in subsequent elections.
At the time of the interview, Tony O’Doherty was a community activist in Londonderry/Derry, Northern Ireland. For years, he played a key role in helping limit clashes between Catholic nationalists and the Protestant-linked police on Election Day. He was one of the founders of the Central Drive Community Center, which provides social services to residents of the impoverished Creggan Estate housing project. Before becoming involved in community activism, O’Doherty was a professional soccer player with various clubs in Northern Ireland and at the international level.
Khalfan H. Khalfan, executive director of the Organization of People with Disabilities, talks about his and others' efforts in Zanzibar to enfranchise disabled people. He addresses the challenges involved in ensuring disabled people can exercise their right to vote and explains the particular difficulties disabled people face in accessing polling stations, casting their votes in private, and avoiding election violence. He also speaks briefly about his role as an election observer in Zanzibar’s first multiparty election in 1995 and some of the irregularities he noted during that election.
At the time of this interview, Khalfan H. Khalfan was executive director of the Organization of People with Disabilities, an advocacy group that he founded in 1985 in his native Zanzibar. He became involved in disabled-rights activism after traveling to Singapore to attend a meeting for the disabled in 1981, the International Year of Disabled People. Khalfan also founded the Eastern African Federation of the Disabled. He was a member of the World Council of Disabled People International for more than 20 years, an elected vice chair for development and underrepresented groups of Disabled People International from 2002 to 2007, and chairperson of the Pan African Federation of the Disabled for 12 years. Prior to his activism on behalf of rights for the disabled, he worked as a secondary-school teacher for almost 20 years. He died in March 2009.
Barney O’Hagan discusses his role as a politician and community leader in Derry, Northern Ireland, in particular his involvement in and reflections about the first peaceful elections witnessed in Derry in memory. He describes the idea of removing police presence from the polling stations as integral to ending election-related violence. O'Hagan highlights the role of Sinn Fein, the political party with which he is affiliated, but he also describes encouraging local, a-political leaders to to promote the removal of police personnel from polling stations in order to give the proposal greater legitimacy. O'Hagan's account of the history of The Troubles in Northern Ireland and the evolution of the situation in Derry, particularly following the Good Friday Peace Agreement, provides context within which dampening election violence can be studied.
Barney O’Hagan is a former councillor from Derry, Ireland with the Sinn Fein political party. O'Hagan was first elected in 1998, soon after his release from prison. His release was prompted by the signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement.
Humayun Kabir, a secretary at the Bangladesh Election Commission Secretariat, shares his experience in the 2008 Bangladeshi election. He talks about many aspects of the electoral process and how the newly constituted Election Commission dealt with them between February 2007 and December 2008. He details the voter-registration and boundary-delimitation processes and the multiple challenges the commission faced in accomplishing these tasks. He also highlights successful innovations such as the photographic voter registry and the use of transparent ballot boxes, which he credits with limiting post-election violence in 2008.
At the time of this interview, Humayun Kabir was a secretary of the Bangladesh Election Commission Secretariat. He joined the commission in 2007, shortly after it had undergone a significant restructuring exercise in response to the postponement of the 2007 Bangladeshi election. Prior to joining the Election Commission he was the managing director of the national insurance corporation, Sadharan Bima Corp. He also worked as joint secretary in the Ministry of Tourism, as deputy secretary of the Cabinet and in various capacities at other Bangladeshi ministries.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi, describes his role as a political party leader in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. As leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) in apartheid South Africa, he opposed creation of his home region as an independent “homeland.” His goal was to attempt reform from within by remaining within the Union of South Africa. He opposed the imposition of sanctions by the international community and the armed struggle espoused by the African National Congress. He and his party at first refused to take part in elections after the apartheid regime relinquished power, but then agreed to participate in the elections, in government, and in drafting the constitution. He was and remains a staunch advocate of a federal system of government with significant provincial autonomy. He describes his reasons, and provides examples of actions he took as a leader in Kwazulu-Natal.
At the time of this interview, Mangosuthu Buthelezi had been a member of parliament from the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) since 1994. Following the elections after the apartheid regime relinquished power, Buthelezi served as minister of affairs and, during President Mandela’s absence, as acting president of South Africa. A member of the Zulu royal family, he became involved in liberation politics after his studies at Fort Hare University in 1950. He returned home in 1953 to assume chieftainship of the Buthelezi clan. As traditional prime minister of the Zulu nation, Buthelezi also holds the title Undunankulu Ka Zulu. He was named chief executive officer of the Kwazulu Territorial Authority in 1970. He organized the IFP in 1975 with support of the African National Congress (ANC). In 2004, President Mbeki offered Buthelezi the Deputy Presidency. Because this meant the IFP would lose its political position in Kwazulu-Natal, Buthelesze refused and the IFP left the unity government.
Peter Eicher talks about his involvement in the Bangladeshi election that was originally scheduled for January 2007 but was ultimately held in December 2008. He details the many challenges that led to the election being postponed, including prolific corruption, widespread electoral violence and significant problems with the Election Commission and dispute-resolution mechanisms. Eicher goes on to explain how the caretaker government rebuilt trust in the Bangladeshi electoral system between 2007 and 2008 by redoing the voter registry, fighting corruption across government and restructuring the Election Commission. He also highlights Bangladesh’s system of having an interim government assume power three months before an election, suggesting it as a potentially useful approach for other countries struggling with neutrality issues in the electoral process.
At the time of this interview, Peter Eicher was an independent consultant on elections, human rights and democracy. He worked for the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, heading elections missions, providing election advice and preparing handbooks and reports on elections in various countries. He started his career as a foreign service officer with the U.S. State Department. After retiring from the department, he took up the deputy director position at the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. In 2005 he began working with the U.N.’s Electoral Assistance Division, working first on the 2005 Iraqi elections and later on the 2008 Bangladeshi election.
Alok Shukla discusses his work with the Election Commission of India. He talks about the importance of election safety and sheds light on the police deployment strategy that surrounds Indian elections. He opens his discussion with an explanation of the monitoring systems used to keep election violence to a minimum. He continues by speaking of other accountability measures like web-cameras with a direct line to the Election Commission placed in to polling stations in order to ensure proper practice. He then explains the system of vulnerability mapping in order to concentrate the most resources to the most vulnerable polling states. Shukla adds a detailed story about enfranchising communities that had been subject to voter intimidation. He concludes his discussion with the monitoring structures in place to ensure the impartiality of the Election Commission.
At the time of the interview, Alok Shukla had served as a deputy election commissioner in the Election Commission of India for around two years. He had previously served as the chief electoral officer for the state of Chhattisgarh.
Remington Eastman of the Guyana Elections Commission describes his role in heading a group that monitors the media prior to, during, and after elections to ensure that coverage is fair and does not favor one party or engage in inflammatory rhetoric. His operation, which is funded by international donors through the commission, had no legal powers to enforce its actions and relied upon persuasion, or “name and shame,” to influence media behavior. He says that these efforts generally were effective during election time, but that the media often return to their partisan or inflammatory behavior after the election period. He states that the Media Monitoring Unit was especially effective during the Lusignan and Bartica massacres, in which Guyana citizens of African descent attacked communities of East Indian descent. The unit worked to calm inflammatory media behavior by showing them the consequences that flowed from similar media behavior in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Another media monitoring unit in Guyana, the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting, created by the Parliament, has the power, unlike the MMU, to enforce its actions through legal action by the president, who is also Minister of Communications. Two television channels were closed down for a period of time because of violations. However, ACB has power only over television, not print media. A 2006 Media Code of Conduct was adopted to guide media behavior during elections that year. It drew upon the Media Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, as well as codes of ethics at the British Broadcasting Corp., the Associated Press and other groups. Eastman also discusses the steps and costs involved to upgrade his agency from analog to digital technology.
At the time of this interview, Remington Eastman was serving as project manager of the Media Monitoring Unit of the Guyana Elections Commission. He started working at the unit in 2006 as a supervisor, and then served briefly in community mobilization and public relations with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He returned to the unit in 2007, when he was appointed manager. He holds a diploma in public communication and a degree in mass communications from the University of Guyana.
S.K. Mendiratta speaks about his work with the Election Commission of India. He opens the discussion by describing the system of vulnerability mapping in order to determine the areas most prone to election violence and intimidation. This included finding areas that had unusually low turnout and providing them with police protection. He notes that known trouble makers are put under increased police monitoring during this time as well. In the second part of the interview, Mendiratta elaborates on the efforts of the Election Commission to curb voter intimidation. These included unique methods such as video monitoring at polls in order to ensure legal compliance. He concludes his discussion by adding detail on the accountability measures keeping watch of the Election Commission. Through focusing on the attitudes of outgoing opposition parties, they are able to determine the perceived fairness of the election.
At the time of the interview, S.K. Mendiratta was the legal advisor to the Election Commission of India. He began his career nearly 46 years earlier as an assistant in the Election Commission. Beginning in 1979, Mendiratta was responsible for all legal affairs of the commission, including electoral reform legislation and litigation work of the commission before the Supreme Court and High Courts in India. Although he had been retired for 13 years at the time of the interview, Mendiratta continued much of his work in an advisory position.
George Sarpong explains the role of the National Media Commission in Ghana, and the role the media plays in elections in Ghana. He goes into detail about the way media is employed by the political parties and the electoral management body, distinguishing between state-owned media and privately owned media in this process. He also explains the role of the media in educating the public in terms of voter registration and how the media has been used to reach out to marginalized populations. He explains how the media commission regulates negative campaigning, and he discusses the overall role of the commission. Finally, he describes how election monitors are used and what their goals are in monitoring elections.
At the time of this interview, George Sarpong was the executive secretary of the National Media Commission in Ghana. His extensive experience included involvement with media issues relating to elections through his capacity as the executive director of the Youth Network for Human Rights and Democracy, working with youth to increase capacity to participate in democratic discourse, and on issues to prevent violence in elections. He served as a member of the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers, coordinating media activities, and consulted regularly on media, media monitoring, and governance issues for multiple organizations. He also was involved in elections in Sierra Leona, Cameroon and Liberia.