Global electoral integrity scorecard launched
Mar 22, 2017
Observer groups have in several countries been criticized for being biased and subjective in their reports and conclusions
The Coordinator of Citizens' Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU), Crispin Kaheru joined stakeholders from across Africa to launch the first ever, electoral integrity scorecard in Sandton Johannesburg, South Africa.
The high level meeting brought together over 40 members from election management bodies, civil society, intergovernmental and international bodies working on elections, as well as academicians.
The scorecard has been developed by the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) and will be deployed to scientifically test the integrity of elections taking into account all the factors that influence elections throughout an election cycle.
It has been developed as a useful tool to enable electoral stakeholders such as observers, governments, and citizens arrive at objective, logical rating about the integrity of an election.
This comes as a brand new innovation in the election observation field and it is definitely going to inspire objective assessment of our elections. It introduces another layer to support evidence-based and methodical reporting on electoral processes.
In other words, this invention will weed out any form of subjectivity of election observers in commenting or reporting on electoral processes.
CCEDU in Uganda is going to be one of the first institutions to test the scorecard - especially in the upcoming by-elections.
Observer groups have in several countries been criticized for being biased and subjective in their reports and conclusions.
The meeting that took place at 20 West Capital Hotel on March 15th was also attended by representatives from the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) including: the East African Community (EAC); Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC); Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); and Southern African Development Community (SADC).
On the side lines of the forum, Kaheru met with the Chairperson of the South African Electoral Commission, Glen Mashinini to discuss areas of potential collaboration.