Imperialism and Existing Meta-National Structures
The invasion of Iraq was a poor decision which was implemented an bungled and incompetent manner. It is also unsustainable, stretching the American Army and National Guard to breaking point. Consequently, the colonial and imperial manner is not a suitable a method. The unilateralist style has also alienated two wealthy and influential nations in Germany and France from the process as well. The recent elections for the National Assembly has been the only highlight in the last eighteen months.
The UN, like the ANZUS Treaty, is a relic from the cold war that has not been able to keep up with the changing realities in the international landscape. The US has attempted to maintain its relevance, but the voting structure of the security council, in particular the veto ability of some nations, points to how out of date it is as a meta-national institution. With the United States actively excluding it, I expect the UN to continue to dwindle down in importance as other nations follow America's lead.
The UN has also focused on military deployments to solve security issues. There is no doubt that the military has the greatest logistical power to sustain an ongoing deployment in the numbers that are often required. But in instances other than civil war, the hard power of a military is often not needed. It is the soft power of the state that needs to be rebuilt and nurtured back to health. Institutions such as the rule of law through the Judicial and Police services. I believe the military is too blunt an instrument to serve this purpose.
The International Electoral Commission
Consequently I am recommending the international community create a meta-national institution outside of the UN and other existing meta-national structures. This institution will have an extremely limited mandate that devotes itself to guaranteeing free and fair elections. The International Electoral Commission (IEC) will be supported, manned and funded by the democratic nation on this earth.
The IEC mandate is;
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Ensuring a secret ballot.
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Ensuring voters are free from intimidation.
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Ensuring the minority parties are free from persecution.
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Ensuring that ballot counting is free from fraud.
Those will require IEC members with political knowledge, plus policing, security and poll worker knowledge. These are skills that are present in all democratic nations.
IEC Council
The IEC members will consist of the nations that are currently democratic and meet the four requirements described above. Any nation which does not meet those, will forfeit their memberships. For instance, Zimbabwe would have been present previous to the recent Mugabe elections. It would no longer be a member.
The IEC Council will consist of one person from each member nation. How the member nation appoints that individual is up to the nation, whether appointed or elected, it doesn't matter to the IEC Council. The Council will elect a Speaker who will head the council and retain the deciding vote on any issue voted upon in the council.
Field Workers
The aspects of ensuring a free and fair election contains large logistical efforts and planning. The democratic nations deal with these issues periodically, consequently the knowledge for this should be drawn from the existing people who satisfy this function. This includes those proficient in management of electoral issues, poll workers, booth workers and police.
These can be drawn upon and deployed as needed, in the same style of volunteering that many of these same people currently do for democracy in their own nations. Working for the IEC in a nation struggling to ensure a fair and free election should be the highest honour for these people.
I am against the military being used for security. I would rather that the world's police forces be used for this purpose. There will be coercion required in instances, especially at the meta-national level, but military coercion is too blunt and outside of the rule of law. The military has its own tribunals and accountability.
The world's police forces have their para-military departments as it is. So there wont be a lack of power that can be applied when needed. It is important that this be a civil deployment.
Accountability
The core philosophy behind the IEC is that individuals under a government have democratic rights that are inviolable. These include the four point that I mentioned above. The secret ballot, freedom from intimidation, freedom from political persecution and freedom from fraudulent ballot counting. Anything less is not a democracy.
For nations that contravene these principles, there will be accountability from the international community. The invasion of Iraq was predicated on all manner of falsehoods and deceit. The fiction of WMD, to breaking UN resolutions.
The IEC, will give outlet to international pressure by quantifying the amount of intimidation, political persecution and fraud in an election. This will give the international community distinct and direct data from which they can base their combined actions.
Deployment
The IEC will be used when a nation requests it. If the largest minority party in a nation requests the IEC's involvement, the IEC will negotiate with the government of that nation to participate in the electoral process. If this fails, then there is the possibility of the IEC being injected into the process through multi-national coercion.
The police, poll workers, tribunals etc will be drawn from volunteers in the member nations - in the same community like manner that much of the democratic process is practised in democratic nations. The military will be limited to providing logistics, unless the election process dissolves into warfare through the actions of the nation being over-seen's majority party or executive leader.
Corruption
Corruption is inevitable in any government institution. In a meta-national institution where it is likely that the majority of the council will be appointed, it is undoubted that this will be the case. For this reason the IEC must be auditable by any interested individual from any of the members nations. Information from the IEC should be entirely public. Any attempt to make the actions of the IEC private must be dealt with as corruption and the basis for the dismissal of that council member or staff member.
Limiting The Scope
The IEC must be limited in scope so that it doesn't grow to a behemoth with responsibilities that extend from running guns to installing dictators in the hyper-powers nation of choice. The IEC is for ensuring free and fair elections, nothing more. Issues outside of the scope of the IEC include;
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Malapportionment
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Electoral system (ie formal preference, proportional etc)
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Electoral/District Boundaries
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Corruption outside of the four points relating to free and fair elections.
The commission is to ensure that the voters and minority parties get a fair crack of the whip, not for imperialistic imposition.
Conclusion
When the Iraqis held their ink stained fingers up, they showed us what they really wanted - a secret ballot, an environment where they are free from intimidation, where the minority parties were free from persecution and the ballot free from fraud.
Even though we focus on Iraq it is important to note that many nations have achieved the transition from dictatorship to democracy on their own, Indonesia being one example. But there have been many nations, such as East Timor, that have needed the outside help, stability and expertise to ensure their desire for free elections are met.
While government maintains the monopoly on violence, there will be those that abuse it to entrench themselves against the democratic wishes of the people. In these cases the IEC - through the legitimacy of the world's democratic nations - can serve to give the people what they demand.
cam
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