Tag Archives: elections

A Young and Watchful Eye on Changes
Tunis – November 2012

Youth has long been the buzz word connecting to the uprisings in North Africa and in the Middle East in the spring of 2011. A demographic shift, we’ve been told, combined with economic and social conditions, resulted in a new resistence culture with new strategies and goals for their respective countries.  Tunisia was one such country, where the median age is 30, and multi-lingual, interconnected youth played an essential role in spearheading the pressure that would lead Ben Ali to flee the country.  Now they are also an important part of safeguarding and assessing the changes that are taking place.  On today’s podcast, we sit in a part in Tunis, together with 3 young people working in the field of non-profit watch dog organizations.  In our 40+ minute conversation you will hear from Amir Kamergi, Khaoula Mhatli, and Yosra Mkadem, regarding the work they are doing and their individual and collective experiences and opinions regarding what is up with Tunisia today, how far we’ve come, and what to make of the future.

“It’s like shock therapy. Something happened that we never expected…  it’s getting better each day, people are growing up… and that’s the great thing about our revolution… we know what we want.” – Yosra Mkadem

I Watch Organization

Upside of Afghan Elections

Cross-posted on Americablog.com:

There is a term that is often thrown around in reference to how elections, in any nation around the world, should ideally be conducted: “free and fair”. When much of the world is watching an election and trying to gage if it is a good election, we look for evidence that people were able to vote without intimidation or any other undemocratic obstacle, and that the results of the vote were processed without irregularities. If this does not happen, then the reports start coming in, and we all sort of collectively decide that whatever elections a nation claims to have had, they were not up to the “free and fair” standard and therefore are not really a democracy.

Here in Afghanistan elections are only 2 weeks away. It is no secret that the government does not control the entire country and a war continues to be waged. Last month the announcement came that due to the strong risk of fraud and violence in certain regions, 900 polling stations would remain closed on election day. In a city like Kabul, Afghan National Police (ANP) run checkpoints throughout the city and there is the undertone of fear of being attacked or kidnapped by both foreign and local people. All-in-all, the task of holding an election in two weeks time is obviously going to be difficult and not without some problems.

The conclusion many observers in the media, governments, and perhaps you reading this right now, is that based on the aforementioned problems, the election is a failure before it even takes place. They take the standard of “free and fair” and they look at the poll closings, the threat of violence, and the recent attacks on political candidates, and they say – nope, Afghanistan’s election is a failure.

Yet the situation could also be looked at in another way. We could look at the 19,942 other polling stations that will be opened and look at the examples where people are voting when election day comes. We can look at the long list of 2,556 candidates from diverse backgrounds, including 405 women, running for parliament. Because looking at election with an interest in what goes right, not only what goes wrong, should also be part of the story that is Afghanistan today.

“Free and Fair” is certainly something anyone would want in an election, and if we were honest, we would admit that this doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. In the end we aim for an election that is as free and fair as possible within its context. The Afghan context is no doubt one of the most difficult in the world right now, but to be able to carry out an election, even one wrought with problems, should also be worth something on the road to stability.

On the EU Elections

I wrote a piece for the Guardian on the Dutch vote during last week’s European Parliamentary elections. Here’s an excerpt:

The headlines on Friday morning in Amsterdam looked not unlike those in the international press around the world: “Far right wins big in Holland”. This was followed by a few paragraphs of analysis, or at least background as to why a leader who says he won’t even show up for work if he is elected could progress in a party in a country that some people still consider as a beacon of open-mindedness.

Yet no matter how big the font or how many exclamation points they use, the power of the far-right voters in the Netherlands is not the only development in 2009. What failed to get much more than a two-line afterthought in all these reports over the weekend is that the Freedom party (PVV) was not the only party to have made gains for the Dutch. Among them, the D66, a progressive-liberal party that has historically championed issues like gay marriage, euthanasia, legalised prostitution and the decriminalisation of drugs, also gained seats. While the PVVContinue reading “On the EU Elections”

ctrp301 Observing Change in El Salvador

Report from El Salvador featuring Warwick Fry.

Chomsky Breaks it Down

Production schedule is still not back on track, but close. Thursday the topic will be Philippines and the war in Mindanao with a correspondant there. More details and research can be discussed this week as well.

But for now I’ll do another recommendation, Monday’s edition of DemocracyNow featured Noam Chomsky talking about what happens now after the elections. He points out alot of details that are regularly passed over or ignored when it comes to what happened in these latest elections. I recommend listening to at least that segment, if not the whole program.? Obviously there will be some mention of the first appointments from the Obama team and the questionable financial and political backgrounds of some of those individuals. But it also gets into money, besides the donations we heard so much about, where alot of the money for the democratic campaign originated and what it means for the incoming administration. Follow the money… I recommend listening to it.

bm285 The Election Protection Wiki

With the US election upon us, there are many tools available on the internet where citizens can collectively report and monitor voting irregularities. The election protection wiki is one of these tools and on in this podcast interview Conor Kenny explains what the EPwiki is, why it exists, and what the longterm goal of the site is. We also go into detail of specific voting issues in specific parts of the United States.

epwiki.org