Emerging Democracies Struggle Through Historic Elections by Michael Coleman Problems plaguing democratic elections in Ukraine and pre-election issues in Iraq are grabbing front-page headlines, but lots of other fledgling democracies are in the midst of their own historic elections. Some are doing it more effectively than others. In places as far-flung as Romania and Niger, voters are going to the polls to choose new leaders for president, parliament and sometimes even low-level municipal offices. But many of the voters in emerging democracies are learning that candidates and their supporters will do whatever it takes, including voter intimidation and election fraud, to win at the polls. In Romania, the first-round presidential elections on Nov. 28 were marred by voting irregularitiesóprimarily voter identification problems that made it possible for unscrupulous voters to cast more than one ballot. The Romanian government, eagerly anticipating entrance into the European Union in 2007, denounced the flaws and vowed to correct them in time for the runoff election that was held on Dec. 12. In Belarus, an October presidential election was widely dismissed as fraudulent by international elections observers, who expressed dismay over alleged voter suppression, police raids on campaign offices and other flagrant abuses of the democratic process. Democracy rarely comes easily to countries accustomed to corrupt, authoritarian regimes, elections experts say. "Itís a long slog to become more democratic," said Thomas Carothers, an expert on emerging democracies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Itís a long road." But in other relatively new democracies, such as Tunisia and Niger, there were virtually no significant problems on election day. The U.S. government has worked aggressively to fertilize the seeds of democracy in other nations and frequently touts the fact that the number of democracies across the globe has almost quadrupled over the past three decadesófrom 30 nations in 1974 to 117 today. Aside from the election in Ukraine, the recent presidential election in Romania was perhaps the most closely watched in the world this year. Romania drafted a new democratic constitution in 1991. In September 2003, the countryís two largest mainstream political partiesóthe National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Democratic Party (PD)óforged an alliance at national and local levels. This resulted in the emergence of two large political blocs: the governing leftist Social Democrat Party (PSD) and the opposition centrist PNL-PD alliance. PNL-PD candidates have grown in stature in local and municipal elections, but the public support of the two blocs remained closely divided. Prime Minister Adrian Nastase and Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu squared off in the Nov. 28 election, but neither candidate garnered 50 percent of the vote, forcing a Dec. 12 runoff election, which Basescu won with a decisive lead. Shortly after the runoff, Prime Minister Nastase conceded defeat in a telephone call to Basescu. "It is the decision of the Romanian people and I respect it," Nastase said. "Basescu is the future president of Romania." Basescuís victory was a major upset to the successors of Romaniaís communists, who have governed for most of the period since the 1989 revolution. The vote showed how divided the country remains, with Basescu backed by a growing urban middle class and Nastase supported by the poorer rural countryside. In the initial presidential race in November, election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe deemed the Romanian election "professional and efficiently organized," but it also requested an "appropriate administrative and judicial" investigation into the fraud charges. The nationalist Greater Romania Party was the first to complain of widespread fraud, but that was soon followed by the more mainstream Basescu, who accused the PSD of using its influence to rig the vote. Basescuís request that the election be nullified and repeated initially fell on deaf government ears. The Romanian Election Bureau denied widespread fraud, but eventually the government agreed to a runoff. An official with the Romanian Embassy described the problems as democratic growing pains. Daniela Gitman, deputy chief of mission at the Romanian Embassy in Washington, said the voting day problems in her country were not akin to widespread election shenanigans. "There were some irregularities, because nothing is perfect," Gitman said, adding that the government addressed every irregularity. The U.S. government, keenly interested in the democratic exercise in Romania, stayed on the sidelines as allegations of fraud flew. "We recognize the valid concerns expressed by many organizations about numerous irregularities during the vote," the U.S. Embassy in Bucharest said in a statement. "Rather than stepping away from the second round of the presidential vote, however, we urge independent groups again to provide a robust civil society monitoring presence on Dec. 12." Gitman said they did just that, and she believes Romania can offer some lessons to other fledgling democracies. "I think we can share our experiences and our lessons learned." In Niger, incumbent President Mamadou Tandja last month became the first president ever to be re-elected in the nation of 11 million people after decades of instability and military coups. President Tandjaóthe countryís first elected leader to survive his term without assassination or overthrow attemptsóreceived nearly 66 percent of the vote in an election remarkable for its largely trouble-free atmosphere. His opponent, former Prime Minister Mahamadou Issoufou, garnered about 35 percent of the vote, which was better than many had expected. The county only began to conduct multi-party elections in 1993, and those were often marred by subsequent military coups that prevented an incumbent from seeking a second term. According to African media, few expected a fair and free election in Niger, but the country surprised the skeptics. Election observers from the European Union and African Union actually praised the country, one of the poorest in the world, for completing an election that was "satisfactory and in conformity with regulations." Joseph Diatta, Nigerís ambassador in Washington, said the people of his country are committed to preserving democracy after decades of political and military unrest. Tandja, a former military official, is widely credited with instilling a sense of civic stability and is viewed as an effective advocate for education and economic development. "We are trying to tell all the people in Niger that it is important to have fair and clean elections," Diatta said. "We have some hope concerning our future." In Botswana, the presidential elections also went smoothly this year, with President Festus Mogae re-elected in October. The elections in Botswana were uniformly regarded as fair, and there is typically very little political upheaval in the country, which borders South Africa. "Itís unusual that there is no alteration of power," Carothers said. The roots of Botswanaís democracy lie in Setswana traditions, exemplified by the Kgotla, or village council, in which the powers of traditional leaders are limited by custom and law. According to the U.S. Department of State, "The openness of the countryís political system has been a significant factor in Botswanaís stability and economic growth." Mogae, who assumed the presidency in 1998 from Ketumile Masire, urged voters to support political continuity, and seemed to convince them that Botswanaís relative prosperity over the past 30 years was because of his partyís sound policies. Opposition parties were trounced by Mogaeís Botswana Democratic Party in parliamentary races because Botswanaís first-past-the-post voting system ensures that opposition candidates must battle each other for votes, allowing the BDP challenger to eke out a victory. "I think there will be a lot of sobering within the opposition parties" after these elections, attorney Dick Bayford, who leads the latest splinter group in Botswana, the New Democratic Front, told Agence France-Presse on election day. Ironically, the beacon of democracyóthe United Statesóhas had plenty of its own struggles on presidential election day in recent years. The 2000 election was plagued by voting machine problems in Florida, and eventually the outcome of the election was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court as protesters filled the streets in Washington. The 2004 U.S. presidential election also h ad its share of problems. Some Democrats are still challenging the results in pivotal Ohio. Allegations of voter intimidation, faulty polling equipment and other problems surfaced in both elections, giving critical ammunition to countries whose own elections are suspect. "The problems with American elections in 2000 and this year have allowed a lot of regimes who donít have good elections to point their fingers at us," Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment said. "It has hurt our credibility." In Belarus, the countryís first president, Alexander Lukashenko, in October won a second five-year term in an election that was widely criticized as fraudulent. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has said the Belarusian authorities failed to ensure the fundamental conditions necessary for a legitimate democratic election. "Freedom of expression, association and assembly were seriously challenged. This calls into question the willingness of the authorities to respect the concept of political competition on a basis of equal treatment," the OSCE Election Observation Mission said in a statement. Among the problems cited by the election observers were police raids on campaign offices, the detention of a candidate, campaign workers and domestic observers, and numerous reports of coercion on certain groups, particularly students, to vote. Furthermore, although election day voting was generally given good marks in about nine out of 10 polling stations, observers reported trouble attaining even the most basic information about the vote counting, and they were given a very limited view of the process. A spokesman for the Belarus Embassy declined to comment, directing The Washington Diplomat to statements from the Belarus Foreign Ministry on the embassyís Web site: "The remarks made with respect to the passed nationwide referendum seem unsubstantiated," the statement said. Also notable was a statement from the government that called the U.S. election into question. "According to the information received from independent observers and mass media outlets, several fundamental international election requirements, including the ones of OSCEís Copenhagen document signed in 1990, were broken," the statement said. "That is why we are not surprised with numerous messages about the missing absentee ballots, malfunctions in the work of the electronic voting system, intimidation of electors, the absence of voters in registration lists, impossibility to obtain information about the voting process from electoral committees." Carothers said it was apparent that the Belarusian government was doing a range of things to influence their election that are not universally accepted as part of a healthy democratic polling process. "They were able to do a number of things using state money," Carothers said. "Itís not stuffing the ballot box, but itís certainly influencing the election." Roger Winter, an assistant administrator for democracy, conflict and humanitarian assistance at the U.S. Agency for International Development, told a Senate committee last year that the United States is heavily committed to nurturing democracy, even in those places that appear to have a long way to go before they get it right. "Even in this country, it has taken generationsóand plenty of rough and tumbleóto refine our institutions and expand our democratic practices to where they are today," Winter said. "We should not be surprised, therefore, that other nations less blessed than ours have struggled along the way." Michael Coleman is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.