Posted on May 11, 2014 by letters2pppapers Conducting a fair election is never easy (witness the dispute over the 2000 presidential election in the US). But it is particularly difficult in poor countries, and especially in poor countries that have recently emerged from, or are still trying to emerge from, conflicts. But despite these common difficulties, the elections in these countries are evaluated according to quite different standards by rich-country politicians who have appointed themselves as international electoral supreme courts. Consider the following examples. Afghanistan Afghanistan held presidential and council elections on April 5. For the previous presidential election in 2009, there were more than 1000 international observers. This time there were almost none, largely because of fear of attack by reactionary militias opposed to any sort of election. The US National Democratic Institute withdrew all of its international staf...
