Quo Vadis África? El efecto democratizador de la observación electoral

Abstract

Election observation is a procedural guarantee to protect the democratic process of free elections and, by extension, the principles of the electoral commons. The work carried out by the election observer lends credibility, truthfulness, confidence and security to the electoral process and its outcome. That is why observers, as champions of the democratic cause, must maintain an impeccable attitude in accordance with the principles of human rights. Citizens pay special attention to observers and their actions, aware of the role they play and aware that election observation carried out in conditions of full democracy favours the legitimisation of the electoral process. This is of particular significance in Africa, a region that for decades has been plagued by autocratic governments and bloody dictatorships, where human rights were not only violated or ignored, but directly suppressed. With the aim of helping these incipient democracies, born on the African continent, institutions such as the European Union have been deploying electoral observation missions in these countries, whose mission has served to discover the deficiencies that may be present in an electoral process, through an objective assessment and evaluation, which is useful to reduce or avoid fraud. Electoral observation is also aimed at providing support in those situations that may give rise to conflicts, reducing or resolving them by means of mediation with the utmost impartiality with respect to the process.