There is a need to craft credible election commissions in West Africa. An article in Mail & Guardian is by L Adele Jinadu explores why and how. Here’s an excerpt

The crass and partisan manipulation of African electoral management bodies (EMBs) was a central feature of the legacy of abuse that successor regimes to colonial rule in Africa inherited and perpetuated. Embedded in partisan politics through “outright control” by successor regimes, EMBs became what the UN Economic Commission for Africa called “ineffectual mechanisms for democratically managing diversity”.

To lay to rest the ghost of such partisan political abuse, and to nurture and strengthen trust in electoral commissions, the democratic transitions of the 1990s stipulated new norms and rules for redesigning competitive party and electoral politics and systems. These norms included democratic political succession and entrenched provisions for the periodic conduct of credible elections and, in the case of presidential systems, fixed presidential term limits, the promotion of diversity, civic participation, and engagement, especially through an increased role of civil society and marginalised groups and the establishment of independent EMBs. 

Indicators of what credible EMBs and electoral integrity should look like were set out in African codes and standards such as the UN’s African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation (1990) and the AU’s African Charter on Democracy, Elections, and Governance (2007) to name just two. But has the objective of nurturing credible EMBs and electoral integrity been achieved?

Read the full comment here.