Despite hiccups, elections breathe life into democracy

Graeme Simpson

We complain that we have only half the vehicles we need, or that we have run out of water, or that the military protection for a particular polling station is inadequate. Usually we are told that nothing more can be done. In turn, our polite response is always: 'No problem.' This is the 'no problem' election.

When first driving through the chaotic streets of Phnom Penh, one could easily take at face value these words, uttered by one of the international polling site officers deployed by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).

There are potential lessons for South Africa in Cambodia's election. First, despite a UN-brokered pre-electoral peace accord between the main Cambodian political and military groups, the agreed process of mutual disarmament never took place. Second, the election eventually took place despite the withdrawal and active opposition of one of the co-signatories – although the Khmer Rouge's threatened disruption of the elections largely failed to materialise. Third, the election went ahead despite instances of intimidation and the alleged assassination of political opponents by some of the 20 competing parties in the run-up to the elections.

According to an UNTAC Human Rights Component statement, the ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) was primarily responsible for these acts. The extent to which intimidation and disruption feature in the forthcoming South African elections will depend largely on the successes or otherwise of the current negotiation process.

Perhaps most striking in Cambodia was the extent of the UN's involvement in the electoral process. The UNTAC mandate, under UN Security Council resolutions, effectively established UNTAC as a quasi-government with theoretical control over the civil administration of the country. By design, UNTAC was to run the country and not merely the elections in Cambodia.

Nonetheless, people within and outside UNTAC complained that the CPP had outmanoeuvred the UN and not only retained control over much of the state infrastructure but also wielded this control to its advantage in the election process. As one local opposition party leader complained: "Every post office or police station is like a CPP office." In the context of an embryonic and highly undeveloped democratic political culture, such advantages arguably weigh heavily.

In South Africa it is unlikely that the UN's involvement will remotely approach the extent of that in Cambodia. For this reason, it is all the more important that the current negotiation process generates agreements which are binding and enforceable on the competing parties – especially with regard to "levelling the playing field" prior to an election.

Equal access to the state-run media will have to be settled in South Africa, whereas in Cambodia the UN could simply step in and set up an alternative radio station and distribute 350 000 second-hand radios in the rural areas, thereby ensuring that opposition parties could compete on the airwaves.

It would seem that multi-party control of the police is a critical dimension of the pre-election negotiations in South Africa, as neither South Africa nor the UN can afford the deployment of more than 16 000 troops from 41 countries, as in Cambodia.

The single most striking success was achieved by the UNTAC electoral component in registering voters, delivering voter education to the most remote parts of the country and ultimately in facilitating a countrywide voter turn-out of more than 90 percent.

The sheer magnitude of the enterprise in the year leading up to the election was staggering: 56 000 Cambodians were trained as poll workers to staff more than 1 400 polling sites for six days of fixed and mobile polling. Ultimately they overcame the damaging rumours of government satellites or "magic pencils", which it was feared would compromise voters in the secrecy of the ballot.

These were hiccups, some more damaging than others. Having spent approximately $2-billion on the whole process, the UN opted for the use of cheap plastic overnight seals on the ballot boxes. Many of the seals broke while the boxes were being transported by the UN military from the polling sites to places of safekeeping overnight. In a slightly sinister fashion, one CPP provincial governor warned that this could be the undoing of the UN's credibility in the election. Much would clearly hang on how the results turned out.

On a slightly lighter note, voter education clearly failed in some minor respects. I witnessed several voters who, having confidently marked their ballots, were at a loss as to where to post them. Many of them jammed the ballots into holes in the cardboard voting booths – frequently to hoots of laughter from fellow voters and much hysteria on the part of the polling workers. The voting booths were then turned upside down, the valuable ballots recovered, and proud voters finally slotted them into the ballot box.

In the final analysis, Cambodian politics is as unpredictable, as under-regulated and as potentially violent as is the traffic of Phnom Penh. While UNTAC involvement in Cambodia may have secured the "minimum conditions necessary for a free and fair election", there is no lasting mandate through which the UN can guarantee the tenuous peace for Cambodia's people. This has subjected the UN's position that "any election is better than no election" to considerable criticism.

Yet, as one of the few Cambodian human rights workers stated: "The people of Cambodia need to vote." It is in the participation of nearly 90 percent of Cambodians in their first ever election that the hope of Cambodia resides. It is possible that the opportunity to exercise a vote – and the broad-based educative process which went with it – may just be the source of empowerment which breathes life into a democratic political culture in Kampuchea.

Herein, too, lies a major lesson for South Africa. Even if conditions are not perfect for an election, the process itself could be of great value in building national reconciliation.

But, in this respect, it is instructive to recall the warning of one UNTAC electoral official against excessive UN involvement beyond a supervisory role. He said: "If you can do it yourselves, it is better than anyone doing it for you. Ultimately this is the only way to build a lasting peace."

There is little prospect of a UN programme in South Africa which is comparable to that in Cambodia. But it is equally important that no one South African political interest group has exclusive administrative control over the electoral process.

While the government's civil service may offer the necessary infrastructure, it alone cannot offer either the credibility or the prospect of empowerment so crucial to lasting peace.

Graeme Simpson is a founder and former Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation.

In the Weekly Mail, 11-17 June 1993.

© Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation