Most national elections not free and fair: Study

LONDON: A new study titled “How to rig an election” by academics at the London School of Economics and the University of Birmingham lists six ways polls are undermined, and concludes that a high proportion of elections across the world are not free and fair.

The number of elections across the world has reached an all-time high, but this has done little to increase the quality of democracy, the study published as a book by Nic Cheeseman (Birmingham) and Brian Klaas (LSE) says.

Their research demonstrates that a high proportion of national elections are not free and fair – enabling authoritarian leaders to remain in power – with the emer- gence of new technology playing a part in the process of manipulation, the university said.

The research is based on more than 500 interviews and the two academics’ experience of watching elections on the ground in countries such as Belarus, Kenya, Madagascar, Nigeria, Thailand and Tunisia.

It also seeks to reveal the extent of the democratic decay that has benefited dictators. They use six strategies dictators to undermine the electoral process and guarantee victory: “invisible rigging” or gerrymandering and exclusion, buying hearts and minds, divide and rule strategies and the use of political violence, stuffing the ballot box in ways old and new, hacking the election using new technology, and, tricking the international community into endorsing the result.