TEIM CRITERIA FOR DEMOCRATIC ELECTORAL ASSESSMENT

Rafael Bustos

PARTICIPATION: It is the the proportion of citizens taking part in the voting process. It is one of Robert A. Dahl’s two essential variables of the polyarchy, along with competition. It can be measured, as Tatu Vanhannen (Polyarchy dataset project) does, by the percentage of votes casted over the total population. The percentage of votes over the electoral census is the official participation. Participation should also be considered in terms of gender, age, ethnicity and region in order to find substantial voting or abstention patterns.

COMPETITION: meaning the non-exclusion, that is, the inclusivity of any religious, ideological and regional based political groups. Here two elements should be considered: first, the percentage of votes or seats obtained by opposition parties or candidates as part of the total, as Vanhanen calculates for his Polyarchy 2.0 indicator. Second, the significance of parties or candidates being excluded by more or less arbitrary criteria, for example by the application of non contestable electoral filters (one time revision of candidates? profiles, control of signatures, etc.).

FAIRNESS: It refers to the conformity of elections to the basic rules and international standards preventing fraud. Are the elections fair and transparent, free from corruption? This has to do with the existence of independent institutions whose task is to survey the election, the intervention of judicial courts to solve election disputes and the presence of international observation missions. Is there a clear regulation on illegal campaign financing? In sum, are the elections clean or not?

REPRESENTATIVE CANDIDATES AND POLITICAL DEBATE: Are the candidates democratically selected within their parties? Either using a down-top method going from the party base structure to the organisation hierarchy or through prime internal elections? Or instead, are they either appointed by the party apparatchiks or by the regime establishment? Are there any democratic debates within each political party and among them (programme confrontation)? Or rather, does the political-ideological debate take part elsewhere, in the media, inside associations or professional bodies, in Internet blogs, etc.?

OPENNESS: It addresses the following question: are electoral results predetermined before hand? Is there a margin for an electoral upturn? Or on the contrary, can results be easily predicted because of biased electoral design (gerrymandering, for example), abuse of public resources, partial application of filters to opposition candidates, etc.?

RELEVANCE: What can elections achieve? Will the elections enable elected candidates or parties to modify substantial elements of the political system, including the electoral formula? Or rather are they tied up by non-political actors or forces, such as the army, the clergy, economic groups or international interests?