Electoral Management Bodies and the Electoral Integrity: Evidence from Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet

Union

Sarah Birch Department of Government University of Essex Wivenhoe Park Colchester CO4 3SQ United Kingdom Bircsi@esex.ac.uk

Project on Electoral Malpractice in New and Semi-Democracies http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/electoralmalpractice/ Working Paper No 2

Electoral Management Bodies and the Electoral Integrity: Evidence from Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT: Electoral Commissions have recently begun to be an object of analysis for scholars of electoral institutions. This paper assesses the impact of various aspects of electoral management body design on electoral integrity in 24 states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Two competing hypotheses are advanced, one emphasising the independence and professionalism of electoral commissions, and another emphasising the role of checks and balances in ensuring that such bodies conduct elections in an impartial and transparent manner. The results of the empirical analysis show the checks-and-balances argument to be better supported by the data. I Introduction What makes electoral management bodies work to ensure free, fair, and meaningful elections? The conduct of elections is often overlooked by scholars, given that high-quality polls are taken for granted in most established democracies. Nevertheless, evidence from democratising and semi-democratic states that electoral conduct is key to the establishment of accountable representative institutions that command the confidence of the population. There has been limited analysis of the impact of several aspects of electoral management body design on democratic performance, but the focus has largely been on the independence of electoral commissions, and other aspects of their structure have been given less attention. The aim of this paper is to assess various aspects of electoral management body (EMB) design on the quality of electoral conduct in a set of cases 24 States in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union that can be considered 'most similar systems' (in that they experienced democratic transition at roughly the same time, they were afforded similar types of democratic assistance and monitoring by the West, and they started from very similar institutional structures). There are a number of reasons why EMBs have recently become a topic of scholarly interest. Firstly, concerns voiced by election observation missions as to the independence of electoral management bodies has led electoral governance to become one of the main foci of foreign assistance and monitoring. Secondly, the problems encountered by a number of democratic states have made scholars of elections in democratising contexts realise that electoral quality was in many cases being compromised by poor electoral administration. Thirdly, there is more comparative data available now than was the case previously. In order to establish its credibility, an EMB must gain the confidence of the population by performing its duties in an impartial and transparent manner (Goodwin-Gill, 1994). Ideally it will also work to observe and promote internationally-recognised standards in the conduct of elections. The post-communist countries of

I am grateful to Chin Huat Wong, Evangelos Kyzirakos and Nigel White for research assistance, as well as to the University of Essex and to the British Academy (Grant SG-46162) for material support for this project.

Central and Eastern Europe are typical of democratizing states the world over in that they have all now introduced permanent electoral commissions. Most of these structures have three tiers, one at the national level, one at the regional level, and one at the local level (though Russia, with its federal structure and large territory, requires five levels of electoral administration). This paper will focus on key design features of central electoral commissions (the first of these tiers). The aim of the analysis is to determine how the features assessed impact on the quality of electoral conduct. II Aspects of EMB Design and Expectations about their Impact It goes without saying that electoral integrity cannot be achieved by state structures alone. The quality of elections is determined by the interaction of a large range of factors. In order for an electoral process to be credible and genuine, candidates, parties, civil society organisations, election observers, the media and the voters themselves must actively seek to observe both the letter and the spirit of the electoral law. Often such efforts involve informal self-binding devices such as agreements among political parties to abide by codes of practice (Goodwin-Gill, 1998). Yet good electoral governance is nevertheless a necessary (if not sufficient) condition for free, fair and meaningful elections. This is true for three reasons: Electoral administrative bodies have an enabling function in that they establish the practical framework in which a credible election can take place. They also have a supervisory function, in that they monitor the activities of other actors in the electoral process and identify malpractice. Finally, they have an education and communication function through which they inform the citizenry as to how the electoral system(s) in the state operate and seek to build confidence in the conduct of elections. That said, the organisation of electoral management bodies is diverse, in terms of their composition, their structure, their competences, and their position in the broader structures of accountability of the state. Rafael Lpez-Pintor (2000) has provided a useful typology that distinguishes between three broad approaches to electoral administration: (1) situations in which elections are run by the government (the civil service, accountable to elected politicians), (2) situations in which elections are run by the government but subject to scrutiny and supervision by an independent body, and (3) situations in which elections are run by wholly independent electoral commissions. In approximately two-thirds of established European democracies, elections are run directly by a branch of the government (Pastor, 1999a), usually the ministry of the interior. This practice is exemplified by France, where the management of elections is co-ordinated at the national level by the Interior Ministry, and only at the local level are committees formed to oversee polling. But starting after the Second World War, states wishing

to reform their electoral administration procedures often established independent electoral commissions, and such commissions are increasingly coming to be seen as best practice in the field of electoral administration (Goodwin-Gill, 1994). Electoral commissions are of two types: those whose function is mainly one of oversight, information dissemination, and policy advice, and those whose task it is actually to carry out the elections. The United Kingdom provides an example of the first type of system. The UK Electoral Commission, formed in 2000, is charged with overseeing campaign finance, reviewing electoral procedures and promoting public awareness of the electoral process. Its only direct administrative role is in the conduct of referendums (see www.electoralcommission.gov.uk); electoral administration will continue to be carried out mainly by local returning officers (so called because it is their job to return constituency (district) election writs to the Queen when the results of an election have been announced) and by the Home Office (the UK ministry of the interior). The German electoral commission is a good example of the second type. The German system has four tiers, three of which are staffed by professional civil servants. There is, in addition, a special commission in charge of district boundary delimitation. The tasks required to carry out an election are divided among the different levels, depending on the nature of the election in question, and no other branch of government is involved to any significant extent in electoral administration. --- Table 1 about here --As the data in Table 1 demonstrate, however, independent electoral commissions conduct elections in most countries in the world today. Moreover, independent electoral commissions, first introduced in Costa Rica and India following the Second World War (Pastor, 1999a; 1999b), are becoming increasingly common, and it is rare in the modern world for elections to be run solely by the government (Lpez-Pintor, 2000). Most scholars view this as a positive development, in that they see independent electoral commissions as having a positive impact on the conduct of elections (Goodwin-Gill, 1994; Pastor, 1999a; Lpez-Pintor, 2000; Mozaffar, 2002). The organisation of elections by government ministries generally involves extensive and sometimes problematic co-ordination among different agencies responsible for central and local administration, for logistics and statistics, etc. The temporal dynamics of elections may also put a strain on the resource capacities of ministries, which may be required partially to suspend their normal functions during key points in the electoral cycle. Also, ministerial control may open the way for the politicisation or the suspicion of politicisation of the electoral process, which can threaten to compromise its integrity. The establishment of a separate, independent electoral management body, usually called an electoral commission, provides a means of

overcoming these problems. It is therefore not surprising that in the African and Latin American contexts, empirical studies have linked independent electoral commissions to improved quality of electoral conduct (Hartlyn, 1994; McCoy and Hartlyn, 2006; Mozaffar, 2002). A second relevant aspect of EMB design is the manner of selecting members. There are two particularly significant aspects of electoral commission appointment: firstly, the number of branches of power that are involved in appointing commissioners, and secondly, whether political parties have a role in this process. It is common for the legislature to take the initiative in selecting electoral commissioners, though in some cases the lead is taken by the executive or the judiciary. Very often more than one branch is involved in some aspect of the process; either choices have to be ratified by more than one branch of power, or different branches appoint certain numbers of commissioners. As far as the role of parties is concerned, it is common that electoral commissioners themselves are not allowed to be party members (though this is not always the case). The relevant question is whether the commission is to be entirely independent of political influence, or whether it should seek to include appointees nominated by the main parties. Most scholars recognise that electoral commissions selected on a partisan basis are capable of performing their duties in a professional, non-partisan manner (Lpez-Pintor, 2000; Massicotte et al., 2004). The multi-party approach is often viewed as preferable in situations where there is a high degree of political polarisation in the state and low levels of confidence in the impartiality of the civil service.1 A third area of EMB design that can be expected to be relevant in influencing the quality of electoral governance is the professional qualifications of commission members. Some commissions include legal professionals only (typically fairly high-level judges),2 whereas others choose to include people from a variety of backgrounds (civil servants, academics, etc). However commission members are selected, the main principles behind effective electoral governance and the prevention of malpractice are independence, impartiality, and professionalism (Baxter, 1997).
1

One problem with including party nominees on electoral commissions is that it is often difficult to implement

this practice in a way that is seen to be fair. If all electoral contestants are allowed equal representation, then there is a danger that very minor groups would wield undue influence, or that larger groups might seek to put forward front candidacies in order to increase their representation on electoral commissions. The alternative is to allocate positions on electoral commissions to parties in proportion to their level of popular support. But in a highly volatile party system, the results of the previous election are not always a good measure of the current popular support of a party.
2

Though in many cases electoral commissioners cannot also be high court judges, because of the conflict of

interest which might arise were a decision of the commission to be appealed in the courts.

Independence means that the electoral commissions are not influenced by other organs of power; impartiality means that they apply the law evenly and are not biased in favour of one or more contestants; and professionalism requires commission members to have training appropriate to the tasks required of them (which will of course differ from level to level). Impartiality is perhaps the most difficult goal to achieve, but also in many ways the most important. Now that the descriptive scene is set, it is possible to elaborate hypotheses as to causal effects. The overarching hypothesis subtending this paper is that EMB design should have an impact on electoral integrity, and that this impact should be strongest in the context of emerging and semi-democracies of the type located in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. As Elklit and Reynolds note, the quality of electoral management is of greater relevance in fledgling democracies than in established states (Elklit and Reynolds, 2005: 154), and it is difficult to believe that the design features outlined above are unimportant in structuring the way EMBs operate. In considering the impact of the various components of electoral management body design on the quality of electoral conduct, there are two possible approaches. On the one hand, it might be argued that institutional independence and professionalism is most important in determining the extent to which EMBs perform their duties in an impartial and transparent manner. This is the argument that naturally emanates from the literature advocating independent electoral commissions (Goodwin-Gill, 1994; Pastor, 1999a; Lopez-Pintor, 2000; Mozaffar, 2002). This view is reinforced by an empirical study of Latin America by McCoy and Hartlyn (2006), who find that independent, professional EMBs staffed by members with legal training (mainly judges) exhibit the best performance. On the other hand, the above discussion might also be taken to suggest that in fragile newly competitive electoral contexts, a checks-and-balances approach is more important than an independence and competence one. A checks-and-balances approach emphasises multi-branch and multi-party contribution to the appointment and scrutiny of EMBs. Giving different branches of power veto over commission appointments ought, in theory, to increase the chances that commissions members are people who have widespread confidence. Likewise, including on commissions representatives of different political parties may mean that possible biases will balance each other out. This is a common strategy in democratising states where there is a perception on the part of some people that the state bureaucracy is not politically neutral. These two explanations are of course not mutually exclusive, and it may well be that institutional independence, professionalism, and plural sources of appointment are all important in guaranteeing that EMBs perform their duties impartially and transparently. Nevertheless, these two alternative explanations represent different approaches to ensuring accountability, which is why it is useful to distinguish between them in

analytic terms. Furthermore, these different approaches often translate into trade-offs when EMBs are being crafted or reformed, so they touch on the concrete choices that electoral engineers face. Determining which of these competing hypotheses is most useful in the post-communist context is the main objective of this paper. IV Cases and Data In the post-communist region, the use of separate, nominally independent, electoral commissions goes back to the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917 (Thatcher, 1995:26), long before such institutions were employed in the democratic world. It is therefore not surprising that most of the states in the post-communist region employ independent electoral commissions; this institutional form represents a happy coincidence of their own institutional traditions (or those that were imposed on them) and the recommendations of electoral assistance providers. In 19 of the 24 states in this dataset, elections are run by independent electoral commissions (they are run by the government under the supervision of an independent authority in the remaining five cases); see Table 2 below. The composition and mode of appointment of these commissions varies, as can be seen from the data provided in Table 2; most (19) make provision for multi-party participation in the appointment of electoral commissioners, and the modal number of branches of power involved in this process is two. In six cases, only one branch of power is involved and in three cases all three branches take part in the process.3 Finally, 10 of the 22 states for which data were available require at least half of central election commission members to have legal training. --- Table 2 about here The period under analysis in this paper is 1995-2005. Cases include two consecutive parliamentary elections during this decade; if more than two parliamentary elections were held during the period, the two most recent elections were used. The dependent variable for this analysis is the level of electoral corruption, operationalised here in terms of an Electoral Malpractice Index (EMI) constructed on the basis of reports of missions of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which has since the communist collapse monitored Eastern European and former
3

Data are unavailable for one case. Virtually all states require the legislature to participate in the selection of

electoral commission members; in about two-thirds of cases, the executive takes part as well, and in eight cases the judiciary is involved.

Soviet elections and assessed them on the basis the criteria of the 1990 CSES Copenhagen document (see Appendix 1 for relevant extracts). The EMI variable was constructed by coding the overall conclusions of each ODIHR observation report on a five-point scale, where 1 is least corrupt and 5 is most corrupt. A country scored 1 if the report stated that the elections fully complied with the Copenhagen commitments (though even such reports invariably included minor suggestions for improvements to the electoral process). An election was awarded a scone of 5 if it was judged fundamentally flawed.4 Poland, Slovenia and Turkmenistan are excluded from this dataset, as the OSCE has not observed elections in these sates.5 There are four independent variables of interest:

EMB institutional independence: operationalised according to Lpez-Pintors classification as a dummy variable, where 0 represents an EMB run by the government but subject to scrutiny by an independent body, and 1 represents an institutionally independent electoral commission (as noted above, there are no EMBs of Lpez-Pintors first (government-controlled) type in this region);

Legal training of commission members: operationalised as a dummy variable indicating that at least half of all central election commission members are required to have legal training; Number of branches of power (executive, legislature and judiciary) that participate in the appointment of the central election commission (this variable ranges from 1 to 3); Multi-party participation in the appointment of the central election commission: this takes the form of a dummy variable designating the participation of the main political forces in nominating election commission members or in validating nominations.

Control variables were introduced for two additional factors found to be significant in a previous study of the determinants of electoral integrity in post-communist Europe: electoral system type and administrative corruption (Birch, 2007). Electoral systems in the post-communist world take three types: pure SMD systems, mixed systems, which, with the exception of Hungary, are of the mixed parallel variety, and pure listproportional representation systems. The mixed systems vary considerably in the relative proportion of the two types of seat, from the 33 per cent SMD seats in Georgia to 87 per cent in Kazakhstan. I have therefore operationalised electoral system design as the proportion of SMD seats in the system. Following the results of
4

The codings for Belarus, Uzbekistan and Yugoslavia are based on the reports of technical assessment mission, See Birch 2007 for a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of using this type of data.

not full observation missions.

5

the previous study, systems with more SMD seats are expected to exhibit higher levels of electoral malpractice (Birch, 2007). Background corruption was measured using the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), a poll of polls whose respondents are in the main business elites (foreign and domestic) in each state. Most of the surveys that contribute to the CPI focus on relations between business elites and state officials, though some of the questions are general enough that they could be understood to include electoral corruption. There are no questions in any of the surveys explicitly relating to electoral corruption (see Transparency International, 2002). It is therefore safe to assume that the CPI data represent an indicator conceptually distinct from electoral corruption. A higher CPI score (indicating lower levels of corruption) is expected to be associated with lower levels of electoral malpractice (Birch, 2007). IV Results Given the pooled structure of the data and the relative lack of variation over time in the independent variables of interest, the statistical analysis was carried out on the country averages of all variables. The resulting model is presented in Table 3. As can be seen from this model, the variables designating formal electoral commission independence and legal qualification requirements are insignificant, while those representing multi-party and multi-branch appointments procedures are associated with a significant decrease in levels of electoral malpractice.6 Multi-party participation in appointments is by far the stronger variable; having multiple parties take part in selecting electoral commissioners is associated with a decrease of nearly two points in the 1 to 5 Electoral Malpractice Index, whereas the participation of an additional branch of power is only worth about a third of a point on this scale. The former variable is also statistically significant at a far lower level. This suggests that a pluralist approach to the appointment of electoral commission members is more effective in delivering good electoral governance than is the establishment of a formally independent and professional body, and that multi-partisan participation in the selection of commission members is the most effective way of holding the commission to account and preventing abuse. The checks-and-balances approach therefore receives support in the post-communist context. The small number of cases in this model cautions against attaching undue importance to the insignificance of the coefficients for electoral commission independence and legal training, but these findings do suggest that multi-actor appointment procedures are more effective in securing electoral integrity.

In addition, the coefficients for electoral system and corruption are highly significant and correctly signed.

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-- Table 3 about here -V Conclusion This paper has tested two competing hypotheses regarding the impact of EMB design on electoral governance: on the one hand, it was hypothesised that formal independence and professionalism would be most conducive to the maintenance of high standards of electoral integrity; on the other hand, it was supposed that a more relevant factor would be multi-actor control over the appointment of EMBs. The empirical evidence has suggested that the checks-and-balances explanation is more powerful than the independence and professionalism account. These results indicate that the formal independence may be insufficient to combat electoral malpractice. This accords with Mozaffar and Schedlers contention that in this domain legal independence is a questionable proxy for behavioural independence (2002; 15). It is undoubtedly the case that what really matters is not the de jure independence of the electoral commission but its de facto isolation from political interference (Elklit and Reynolds, 2002; Pastor, 1999a), and this can in some cases be better achieved by government bodies than by officially independent ones. Indeed, Todd Eisenstadt (2004) finds this to be the case in Mexico, where political bargaining among parties was more effective in generating good electoral governance than institutional independence. These findings have implications for electoral assistance activities, in that they caution against overemphasis on formal structures. As Carothers argues, the institutional fixes often advocated by those involved in electoral and democratic assistance are unlikely to be successful if they disregard the underlying configuration of power in the states in question (Carothers, 1999: ch. 7). This phenomenon is described in greater detail by Marina Ottoway, who gives electoral commissions as a common example of institutions that members of the international community force a country to set up when the government doesnt really want them: Intervenors want elections to be organized by independent commissions, and they often prevail upon the government to set up an organizational structure called an election commission. In many cases, the commission is not given the space to build up its capacity and power, and it thus never becomes an institution, although it may continue to exist. In other cases, a tug of war begins between government and democracy promoters that can lead incrementally to the institutionalization of the election commission. But this does not happen automatically or without strong pressure. (2003: 22-1)

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The political context of post-communism is also undoubtedly of relevance in explaining the results found here. The formal independence but de facto political control of state institutions was ubiquitous under communism, and lack of deviation from that model may well account for the fact that the formal independence of electoral commissions does not appear to be a strong determinant of good electoral governance in this region. Multiparty and multi-branch control over electoral management bodies is in this context perhaps the most effective means of breaking the party-state model of governance. The pluralistic approach may not necessarily be effective in guaranteeing complete impartiality, but it does appear to be preferable in this context to formal measures for seeking to promote EMB independence and professionalism.

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References Baxter, Joe, Techniques for Effective Election Management in Elections: Perspectives on Establishing Democratic Practices, Geneva and New York: United Nations Department for Development Support and Management Services, 1997. Birch, Sarah, Electoral Systems and Electoral Misconduct, Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming, December 2007. Eisenstadt, Todd A., Catching the State off Guard: Electoral Courts, Campaign Finance, and Mexicos Separation of State and Ruling Party, Party Politics 10.6 (2004), pp. 723-45. Elklit, J. and A. Reynolds, The Impact of Election Administration on the Legitimacy of Emerging Democracies, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 40.2 (2002), pp. 86-119. --- A Framework for the Systematic Study of Election Quality, Democratization 12.2 (2005), pp. 147-62. Goodwin-Gill, Guy S. Free and Fair Elections: International Law and Practice, Geneva: Inter-Parliamentary Union, 1994. Hartlyn, J. Crisis-Ridden Elections (Again) in the Dominican Republic: Neopatrimonialism, Presidentialism, and Weak Electoral Oversight, Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36.4 (1994), pp. 91-144. Hartlyn, J. and J. McCoy, Observer Paradoxes; How to Assess Electoral Manipulation, in A. Schedler (ed.), Electoral Authoritarianism: The Dynamics of Unfree Competition, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 2006, pp. 41-54. Lpez-Pintor, R., Electoral Management Bodies as Institutions of Governance, New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2000. McCoy, J. and J. Hartlyn, Election Processes in Latin America: Historical legacies and Proximate Causes, Paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the America Political Science Association, Philadelphia, 13 August 3 September, 2006. Massicotte, Louis, Andr Blais and Antoine Yoshinaka, Establishing the Rules of the Game: Election Laws in Democracies, Toronto, Buffalo and London; University of Toronto Press, 2004, pp. 33-9. Mozaffar, Shaheen, Patterns of Electoral Governance in Africas Emerging Democracies, International Political Science Review 23.1 (2002). Mozaffar, S. and A. Schedler, The Comparative Study of Electoral Governance An Introduction International Political Science Review, 23.2 (2002), pp. 5-27.

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Ottoway, Marina, Democracy Challenged: The Rise of Semi-Authoritarianism, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003. Pastor, Robert A., The Role of Electoral Administration in Democratic Transitions: Implications for Policy and Research, Democratization 6.4 (1999), pp. 1-27. --- A Third Dimension of Accountability: The International Community in National Elections, in A. Schedler, L. Diamond and M. F. Plattner (eds.), The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999b, pp. 123-42.

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Table 1: Global Distribution of Electoral Management Body Types Type Government runs the elections Government runs the elections under a supervisory authority Independent electoral commission Source: Lpez-Pintor, 2000. Number 29 40 79 Proportion (%) 20% 27% 53%

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Table 2: Details of Central EMB Design In Post-communist Europe and the Former Soviet Union* Country Electoral management body type** Multi-partisan appointment procedure Number of branches of power that participated in appointment 3 2 1 2 2 1 1 2 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 3 2 2 1 2 2 N/A 1 Legal training required of at least half of central electoral commission members No No N/A Yes Yes No Yes No Yes No No No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No N/A No

Albania (1997, 2001) Armenia (1999, 2003) Azerbaijan (1995, 2000) Belarus (2000, 2004) Bulgaria (1997, 2001) Bosnia and Herzegovina (1998, 2002) Croatia (2000, 2003) Czech Republic (1998, 2002) Estonia (1995, 1999) Georgia (1999, 2003) Hungary (1998, 2002) Kazakhstan (1999, 2004) Kyrgyzstan (2000, 2005) Latvia (1998, 2002) Lithuania (1996, 2000) Macedonia (1998, 2002) Moldova (2001, 2005) Romania (2000, 2004) Russia (1999, 2003) Slovakia (1998, 2002) Tadjikistan (2000, 2005) Ukraine (1998, 2002) Uzbekistan (1999, 2004) Yugoslavia (1996, 2000)

GSA IC IC IC IC IC IC GSA IC IC IC IC IC GSA IC IC IC GSA IC GSA IC IC IC IC

Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes

* See Appendix 2 for details of data sources. ** IC = Independent Commission; GSA = Government runs the elections under the supervision of an independent authority

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Table 3: OLS Model of the Determinants of Electoral Malpractice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union Variables Independent EMB Legal training requirement Multi-party participation in appointment Number of branches of power participating in appointment Proportion of SMDs in electoral system Corruption Perceptions Index Constant Coefficients .339 (.312) -.393 (.303) -1.198*** (.421) -.395* (.211) 1.839*** (.375) -.934*** (.137) 6.867 (.906)

N: 22 Adj. R2: .876 * p > .10; ** p > .05; *** p > .01 Unstandardised coefficients are reported; figures in brackets are standard errors.

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Appendix 1: Text of the Relevant Passages of the OSCE Copenhagen Document The Document of the Copenhagen Meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension of the CSSE (29 June 1990), commonly known as the Copenhagen Document, states that: [...] 6. The participating States declare that the will of the people, freely and fairly expressed through periodic and genuine elections, is the basis of the authority and legitimacy of all government. The participating States will accordingly respect the right of their citizens to take part in the governing of their country, either directly or through representatives freely chosen by them through fair electoral processes. They recognize their responsibility to defend and protect in accordance with their laws, their international human rights obligations and international commitments, the democratic order freely established through the will of the people against the activities of persons, groups or organizations that engage in or refuse to renounce terrorism or violence aimed at the overthrow of that order or of that of another participating State. To ensure that the will of the people serves as the basis of the authority of government, that participating States will 7.1 - hold free elections at reasonable intervals, as established by law; 7.2 - permit all seats in at least one chamber of the national legislature to be freely contested in a popular vote; 7.3 - guarantee universal and equal suffrage to adult citizens; 7.4 - ensure that votes are cast by secret ballot or by equivalent free voting procedure, and that they are counted and reported honestly with the official results made public; 7.5 - respect the right of citizens to seek political or public office, individually or as representatives of political parties or organizations, without discrimination;

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7.6 - respect the right of individuals and groups to establish, in full freedom, their own political parties or other political organizations and provide such political parties and organizations with the necessary legal guarantees to enable them to compete with each other on a basis of equal treatment before the law and by the authorities; 7.7 - ensure that law and public policy work to permit political campaigning to be conducted in a fair and free atmosphere in which neither administrative action, violence nor intimidation bars the parties and the candidates from freely presenting their views and qualifications, or prevents the voters from learning and discussing them or from casting their vote free of fear of retribution; 7.8 - provide that no legal or administrative obstacle stands in the way of unimpeded access to the media on a non-discriminatory basis for all political groupings and individuals wishing to participate in the electoral process; 7.9 - ensure that candidates who obtain the necessary number of votes required by law are duly installed in office and are permitted to remain in office until their term expires or is otherwise brought to an end in a manner that is regulated by law in conformity with democratic parliamentary and constitutional procedures. 7. The participating States consider that the presence of observers both foreign and domestic, can enhance the electoral process for States in which elections are taking place. They therefore invite observers from any other CSCE participating States and any appropriate private institutions and organizations who may wish to do so to observe the course of their national election proceedings, to the extend permitted by law. They will also endeavour to facilitate similar access for election proceedings held below the national level. Such observers will undertake not to interfere in the electoral proceedings. Source: This document may be accessed at www.osce.org/odihr.

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Appendix 2: Data Sources Election Malpractice Index: This index was constructed on the basis of OSCE/ODIHR election observation reports. Most of the post-1996 reports are available on-line at www.osce.org/odihr. A number of further reports are collected on the CD-ROM entitled 'OSCE Documents 1973-1997' and distributed by the OSCE. The remainder of the reports cited here were obtained directly from the archives of the ODIHR headquarters in Warsaw. The election corruption variable was compiled on the basis of an assessment of the overall conclusions of each report (in most cases these are stated in the executive summary). The assessments were ranked on a scale of 1 to 5. Each report was coded independently by three coders. The coders assessed each election assessment according to the following schema: a score of 1 was awarded if the election in question was substantially in compliance with the OSCE Copenhagen obligations; a score of 5 was given if the election was severely compromised, such that the validity of the result was in doubt; an election was scored 3 if there were some violations, but not enough to alter the outcome, and intermediate scores of 2 and 4 were employed to indicate that an election fell somewhere between the annotated categories. Electoral system: determined on the basis of electoral legislation held at www.essex.ac.uk/elections and www.legislationline.org. Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index data are taken from www.transparency.org. This index is ranges from 0 (most corrupt) to 10 (least corrupt); see the Transparency International website for methodological details. Not all countries are included in all years, so data have in some cases been drawn from years before or after the election in question. Data for the Albanian election of 1997 were from 1999. Data for the Albanian election of 2001 were from 2002. Data for the Armenian elections of 1996 and 1998 were from 1999; data for the Armenian election of 2003 were from 2000. Data for the Azerbaijani election of 1998 were from 1999. Data for the Belarusian election of 2001 were from 2002. Data for the Bulgarian elections of 1996 and 1997 were from 1998. Data for the Croatian elections of 1997 were from 1999. Data for the Georgian elections of 1999 were from 2000; data for the Georgian elections of 2003 were from 2002. Data for the Kyrgyz elections of 2000 were from 1999. Data for the Macedonian elections of 1998 and 2002 were from 1999. Data for the Moldovan elections of 1996 were from 1999. Data for the Tajik elections of 2000 were from 2002. Sources of EMB design data:

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Election law archive in the Political Transformation and the Electoral Process in Post-Communist Europe database at www.essex.ac.uk/elections. The Legislationline database at www.legislationline.org. OSCE/ODIHR election observation reports (see above). Macedonian State Electoral Commission website at www.izbori.mk.