On the eve of the International Day of Democracy, South African Judge Johann Kriegler spoke to current and former IFES staff about democracy assistance, which he called “the most worthwhile undertaking.”
“I cannot think of an undertaking more worthwhile than serving our fellow human beings through the development of the most telling manifestation of democracy, the most telling manifestation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” he told the group of elections professionals on Sept. 14. “Giving dignity, recognition, acknowledgement to the simple vote to say: this is your country, how do you want to have it run?”
Hosted by IFES President and CEO Bill Sweeney, the conversation with Kriegler, a former Constitutional Court judge and Chairperson of the Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa, was part of the launch of IFES’ Alumni Network. The Network aims to strengthen the ties between former and current IFES employees and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge, experience and memories.
Kriegler, a human rights lawyer of world renown, has participated in judicial and electoral missions in more than a dozen countries. He led the effort to reform electoral law in Kenya following post-election violence in 2007 and recently served on Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission.
In 1994, Kriegler headed the first democratic elections in South Africa following the end of apartheid.
“It was the easiest of all [the elections] I have been involved in because the political will for it to succeed was there. The liberation movement and the government of the day had committed themselves to the success of the election.”
Having only four months to prepare for the 1994 election, Kriegler said the poll had some flaws. After all, administrators were preparing for the election from scratch. They had no voter register, no polling stations identified, no polling staff, no constituencies marked up. They began preparing for the election with a blank slate a week after Christmas knowing the election had to take place on April 27 — that date was carved in stone.
“Ultimately it worked because the people believed in us,” Kriegler said. “That was the one major success of that election process; we established the credibility of the electoral management body.”
In 2008, Kriegler headed the Kriegler Commission, which investigated the election violence following the 2007 elections in Kenya.
Speaking of Kenya, he said: “I think they have turned over a new leaf. They have amended the constitution, reconstituted the election management body, re-delimited constituencies, reconstructed the judiciary, which is, of course, crucial. They have a new attorney general with a new set of powers. They have a new electoral act. Touch wood, it’s going to work next time.”
The audience asked many questions about the work of the international community in assisting local election management bodies run elections.
“Transferring skills is more difficult than doing the job yourself,” Kriegler said. “But consulting people, seeing to it that local management bodies actually make the decisions, that they integrate it with their own thinking, is key. See what the local stakeholders think, what they need.”
Kriegler said that as a member of the international community working in a country with its own set of values, “you have to be sensitive all the time.”
“But there are principles that are not negotiable,” he continued. “Manifest equality of treatment, impartiality, courtesy towards all political role players, towards all minority groups.”
When asked about the role of international charters and agreements, he said that “international norms, universal value systems, criteria evolved over the process and analysis of many elections are absolutely essential in the planning, assessment and conduct of elections. It does not mean that Scandinavian electoral practices work in Kabul or Kandahar, but the norm is there. The benchmark is there.”
Speaking of international charters, he said his fondest memory was an encounter in the mountains above Dili, East Timor, when the group with which he was travelling stopped at the roadside to speak to an elderly woman.
She was “an old lady, quite clearly a very simple, unsophisticated woman,” Kriegler said. Through an interpreter, she was asked if she knew about 31 August, the anniversary date of the referendum of freedom. Her face lit up at the memory of the day, and she seemed upset at being asked such a silly question.
She was then asked if she knew about the upcoming election to approve the constitution, and whether she knew what the constitution meant.
“That old lady, as simple and illiterate as she was, understood precisely what the constitution was,” Kriegler recalled. “She said it was ‘the contract through which we were going to live with one another in this country. We are going to agree to live according to those rules, and through the election, we were going to agree and disagree on the particular rules.’ She had it exactly down.
“And that to me is the greatest manifestation of the value of the Universal Declaration. It worked! If that old lady knows it, anybody can know it too. It was the happiest moment, undoubtedly.”
Kriegler ended the session with a reflection on the process of electoral assistance.
“We have seen the process of electoral assistance develop over the years. We are infinitely stronger as an international community of electoral assistance than we were when we first started. Lots of lessons have been learned, IFES has taught many of those lessons, observed, analyzed and digested many of them.”
Kriegler is a recipient of the IFES’ 2011 Charles T. Manatt Democracy Award, which honors individuals who have shown a commitment to advancing freedom and democratic values. The award is given yearly to a Republican, a Democrat and a member of the international community to highlight the fact that democracy work transcends political parties and national borders. Click here for more information about this year’s recipients.
If you are a former IFES employee and would like to join the Alumni Network, please visit: www.ifes.org/alumni