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the will to see legitimate election results outweigh the ability to actually realize them, especially in the face of significant voter apathy?
I was reminded of this again at the end of the day, when we arrived at our final polling station to observe the vote count. The rules in Mali stated that once the ballot box was opened, no one could enter or leave the poll, which in this case was a classroom that entered into a central courtyard of a secondary school. At this single polling station at least a third of the twenty or so people present were international observers. The rest were party representatives. The polling officer read the rules diligently as the sun slowly set and the room grew darker. About a quarter of the way into the counting a single fluorescent bulb was flicked on to give the room it’s only light. We all squinted to see the ballots as they were held up at the front of the room, counted and marked on a chalkboard. Once or twice the power failed all together and the officers pulled out flashlights and headlamps until a generator kicked in. The door remained open to prevent the oppressive heat from the bodies of twenty or so people trapped in the tiny room from suffocating us all. We sat on rickety school benches on uneven packed-earth floors. Every once and a while over the course of the count one of the benches
For many of the inconsistencies I that did not involve fraud or voter r context of the elections that did afte
d’état, in the midst of ongoing ins and in one of the poorest
would make a creaking sound as if it were about to break under the weight of the many adult bodies it wasn’t designed to hold.
While everything about the process was imperfect, it appeared functional. The light coming from that single fluorescent bulb was just enough to see the ballots. The room was just big enough for everyone to fit. The occasional departure or arrival at the open door was observed by the vote counters and concerns were raised and addressed if it seemed suspicious. Anyone present had the right to protest the inclusion of a ballot if the validity was in question, a right party representatives happily took advantage of but never pushed too hard on. There were no fights, and at the end no one seemed particularly surprised by the results. The party of the president won a majority and
observed, plausible explanations nanipulation were present given the er all take place shortly after a coup stability in large areas of the north, it countries on the planet.
other parties not insignificant portions of the vote. After counting was completed the ballot box was resealed and carried off. The national results largely reflected that single polling station.
As a Canadian, and as someone who had never observed our own elections in the same level of detail, there were aspects of what I observed that I could clearly define as specific to Mali, others that I could just as easily see happening in Canada, and still others that seemed bizarre (read suspicious) no matter the context. Polling officers not being entirely sure of all the rules and having to go find the instructions book would not surprise me in Canada or Mali. Voters not being able to find their polls, or the single laptop that held the registry having a poor internet connection, while concerns for the integrity of the process, didn’t seem surprising given the context. On the other hand, in a country where corruption and graft are rampant, a police officer appearing before the polls had closed with cash in hand to pay the polling officers, as happened at one station we visited, set off a few alarms in my head. Whether this is the sort of thing that is sufficient to question the results of
in a country where corruption and graft are rampant, a police officer appearing before the polls
had closed with cash in hand
to pay the polling officers, as happened at one station we visited,
set off a few alarms in my head. Whether this is the sort of thing
that is sufficient to question the results of an entire election was hard to tell.
an entire election was hard to tell. Whether the return to democracy outweighs certain issues popping up here and there is also a hard call. As an observer I didn’t have to make those calls, I just asked questions, took notes and reported back.
As an immigration officer, I am trained in fraud detection. Part of this involves knowing when inconsistencies, uncertainties, and unknowns are material to the decisions I have to make. Whether a potential issue could lead to material information being found fraudulent determines whether or not you choose to pursue it further. As an election observer, I didn’t have to make any decisions, but the same principles held true. For many of the inconsistencies I observed, plausible explanations that did not involve fraud or voter manipulation were present given the context of the elections that did after all take place shortly after a coup d’état, in the midst of ongoing instability in large areas of the north, and in one of the poorest countries on the planet. While my knowledge of Mali was limited, I was nonetheless constantly reminded of these simple structural factors that made it almost impossible for the process to be perfectly transparent to an outsider, or even many Malians. I also knew that these structural limitations meant that fraud could be more easily committed and hidden completely.
A second text message a couple of weeks later marked the beginning of the second and final round of voting in the legislative elections. In short order the victory of the president’s party was confirmed and the international community declared a definitive return to democracy. The voter turnout for the election was about nation-wide 40%, giving President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita 78% of the Legislative Assembly’s seats. In the restive north the voter turnout was higher than anywhere else in the country, even as a bomb killed two UN peacekeepers in the same week of the final vote. In the three years since the election, and two and a half years since I left Bamako, the capital has experienced a number of deadly terrorist attacks. Instability in the north remains while the international community has continued to try to solidify a lengthy and uncertain peace process.
The ultimate unsettling convenience of my role both as an election observer and a member of the international community present in Mali in 2013 was that I could, and eventually did, leave the country. Observing elections and declaring democracy functional or dysfunctional on that basis is a facile approach to assessing the validity of a political process that is at constant risk of collapse, as was shown in Mali in 2012. No matter the party or president elected, what I observed and recorded on the ground, or how much the international community wanted the elections to be valid, Malians were ultimately the ones left to hold their new government to account.
Alex Johnston is a FS immigration officer at IRCC. After finishing his first posting in Hong Kong in 2013, he saw the Foreign Service life from the other side, accompanying his spouse on a posting to Bamako. Alex has also completed temporary duty assignments in Lagos, Pretoria, Riyadh and most recently Beirut assisting with Canada’s efforts to resettle Syrian refugees. He is currently finishing a MA in Political Science at the University of Ottawa, and occasionally, to varying degrees of success, attempts to build things out of wood.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2016), pp. 16–17. Read the rest of this issue →
