ONLINE INTERVIEW BETWEEN CHANDA CHISALA (ZAMBIA ONLINE) AND MICHAEL MEADOWCROFT (DELEGATION LEADER OF EUROPEAN UNION ELECTION MONITORING UNIT). (17th February 2002)
Interview published on the EC Delegation Election Monitoring Website.
Question 1. Can you tell us how long you’ve been working in the European Union, and how much experience you personally have in election monitoring?
Like all of us on this circuit, I am perforce a freelance and work for whomever invites me. This includes the EU, the UN, the OSCE, individual countries etc. I have been doing this work since 1989, following 37 years in politics.
2.Has the EU ever monitored elections outside the third world?
I have headed up electoral observation missions in central and eastern Europe but these are usually with the OSCE which takes the lead in that region.
3.Is there any country you monitored in which you gave a thoroughly positive review of the elections? Did the incumbent parties win in any of these elections? (Please specify)
It needs to be borne in mind that we undertake a wide variety of work in young democracies. More often than not we are involved in more technical assistance than monitoring – just as the EU was in Zambia, with two experts, Joram Rokambe (Director of Elections, Namibia) and Noel Lee (Former Director of Elections, Jamaica) funded by the EC and assigned to the ECZ.
In a number of cases (eg Slovenia, April 1990, Georgia, October 1992, Iraqi Kurdistan, May 1992, Palestine, January 1996) the elections were the first for an entirely new authority, so there were no “incumbents”.
I have led or been part of observer missions which made more or less positive statements in elections which the incumbents won:
Yemen, April 1993
Russia, July 1996
Cambodia, July 1998
Suriname, July 2000
4.What other countries that were monitored by the EU in recent times had as negative a report from your team as Zambia did? Did the incumbent party lose in any of these cases?
No – this is the first time I have ever been involved in having to
make such critical statements.
5.What are your views about the last American Presidential elections? Would you have described them as very free and fair? Would you describe their management of the electoral process as highly professional?
I wasn’t present in the USA for the last Presidential elections and therefore cannot comment at first hand on its quality. However, from the reports on the voter registration process in the state of Florida, particularly on the tactics employed to maximise registration for potential voters for one party and to minimise it for potential voters for a different party, there appeared to be a number of similarities between that and the voter registration process in Zambia.
Incidentally, it is certainly not my case that elections in Western Europe and North America are all good and those in Africa are all bad! I am on record as a very severe critic of UK elections over many years!
6.Does the EU officially monitor elections in the United States?
Not to my knowledge. Unlike the Zambian Ministry of Foreign Affairs which invited the EU, it may be that the US State Department did not invite the EU. Perhaps it should.
7.It is reported that you told Anderson Mazoka that he had won the elections before the counting was over. What did you actually tell him? Do you think you contributed to some of the confusion that ensued afterwards, following his alleged premature announcement of victory?
I didn’t tell him anything! I gave him the latest printout from our database of polling station results – just as I gave the same figures to many people who came to our offices – together with a “health warning” that the figures were simply what had come in and were in no sense a scientific sample. I have no idea of what he said thereafter – that was, of course, up to him.
I believe in transparency and am therefore always predisposed to provide as much information as possible. How that information is used is up to the recipients of it.
And, of course, until we have much more information from the ECZ, including explanations of the turnout discrepancies and the apparent disappearance of invalid ballot papers, it is difficult to be sure that its declared results are safe.
8.When you said whatever you said to Mazoka, did you say it to him in your official capacity as EU Monitoring Team leader, or were you simply telling him this in your personal capacity? Is this standard procedure in all the countries you have monitored?
As stated above, I didn’t tell him anything! You really ought not to
fall into the trap of presupposing that what is alleged by the Government or MMD spokesman is necessarily accurate. Just ask the spokesman for any evidence of any statement! None were made and, therefore, none exists! And, of course, therefore, none have ever been quoted.
9.Some people think it is suspicious that you had this kind of personal contact with Mr. Mazoka. Did you have any personal contact with the other opposition party leaders? Did you have such close contact with Mazoka BEFORE the elections? And the other presidents? Including Mwanawasa?
As is normal, I met all the major parties. In most cases, that involved meeting their presidents, but in the case of the MMD it was their campaign chairman, V J Mwaanga, that I met. I had no close contact with any candidate. I met Mr Mazoka once before the election and once after it. It is, of course, standard practice to meet all the players and to discuss their perceptions of the electoral process. And parties often initiate further contacts to make representations about specific concerns.
Also, because the EU and its Member States were prepared to assist the parties fielding Presidential candidates to have polling agents at every polling station, I met with most parties again. This included the Honourable Mwaanga who wished the MMD to participate in the scheme. I therefore agreed that the EU Member States would provide US$55,000 for the MMD’s polling agents. This EU financing of the MMD along with the other parties is perfectly normal but has yet not been widely acknowledged by the MMD.
10. Would you say explicitly from your findings that there was a good possibility that the incumbent party rigged the elections?
I have never used the word rigged. I have consistently said that the deliberate flouting of the Code of Conduct by the incumbent party is likely to have had a beneficial electoral effect in its favour – otherwise why do it? The distribution of title deeds for houses, the use of government vehicles, the partisan coverage of the campaign by ZNBC and the two government newspapers, the attachment of the DAs to the MMD campaign, and the discriminatory granting of permission for meetings – all well attested with evidence – could well be decisive in a race as close as this one.
11.If they were rigged, would you think of any possible ways this could have been done, given the strict monitoring environment around the ballot boxes?
In many ways, alas. In Lusaka, for instance, 64 polling stations did not have ballot boxes in time for the opening of the polls. All of these polling stations were in areas which voted heavily for the opposition and the consequent constraints on, and inhibition of voting in those polling districts prima facie benefited the incumbent party. There are a number of recorded instances of ballot boxes being removed from the sight of observers and of observers being prevented from being able to see the marks on ballot papers at the count. Also, we have highlighted many instances of the published results emanating from the tabulation not being credible – the amended declaration of the results in Ndola Central being one obvious example.
12. It is reported that your monitors were only present in a few polling stations. Is there any reason why you did not have monitors in all of the polling stations? (Was it financial constraints, or was it geographical difficulties?)
No international observation mission ever has anywhere near full
coverage – that is left to the domestic observation organisations –
and, in fact, with 16 Long Term Observers and 86 Short Term Observers, this was a bigger delegation than most. I regard a 10% sample, spread over all nine provinces, as perfectly adequate, particularly when we have such good co-operation with other international missions and with the domestic monitoring organisations.
13.The Carter Center is reported to have said that the irregularities affected all the presidential candidates negatively, including the ruling party’s presidential candidate. Would you agree with this assessment?
I suggest that you read the Carter Centre’s actual statements (they
are all on our website: www.eueu-Zambia.org). They highlight the same prima facie irregularities as we did.
14.Would you describe the Electoral Commission of Zambia as biased, or just incompetent?
I regard its failure to carry out a delimitation of constituencies; to achieve more than a 55% registration of eligible voters; and to run an efficient polling day operation, as evidence of maladministration.
I regard its failure to enforce its own Code of Conduct as an assistance to the incumbent party.
I regard its refusal to confront the evidence of prima facie errors in
its declared results as inexcusable and unsupportable, particularly in a close run race.
15.Is there any of the candidates you personally preferred over the other candidates?
Any preferences I might have are wholly irrelevant. I am simply and solely concerned with the preferences of the Zambian electorate.
16.If you knew beforehand that the playing field was not leveled (as you have been reported to state), why didn’t the EU exert some pressure on the government of Zambia to level the playing field before releasing the funds to sponsor the elections? Do you think it was morally right to sponsor an election that was inherently bent to favor one side?
This was, of course, before my arrival in Zambia, but the EC Delegation attempted to do precisely what you suggest. In June the newspapers saying that, despite the lack of conformity with the three “tests” of the financing agreement with the Government of Zambia, it was going to release the funds to the ECZ as an act of good faith.
Had it not done so it would, of course, have later been vulnerable to
the charge of causing the election to be badly administered by starving it of resources. At that point in the process, the EC Delegation probably assumed, as I originally did, that we would be regarded by the ECZ as partners in the high task of achieving the best possible election. This, alas, proved not to be the case.
17. Is there anything else you would like to clarify or explain to the people of Zambia?
You should note the remarkable unanimity of assessment of this election and, even more so, the highly significant fact that all the domestic monitoring bodies have published conclusions on the elections that are much more trenchant than the EU’s. (They are all on our website). Look, for instance, at the CCZ’s statement. This important church organisation went as far as stating that the new regime should not be recognised.
Why is it that so much effort is expended in attacking the EU messenger rather than the EU message, when its conclusions are much milder than every Zambian monitoring organisation? Curious, don’t you think?
I came to Zambia assuming that, as in missions elsewhere, including in Malawi in 1994, I would be able to develop a partnership with the chairperson of the electoral commission, and be able to co-operate with the whole commission. As I said often to the chairperson, I very much wanted to be able to issue a very positive assessment of the elections. Alas, there was no co-operation and bit-by-bit it became painfully clear that we would have to be critical of the electoral process.
FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS (18th February)
I have four more questions, (if you don’t mind).
OK by me.
1.What would you say about the EU’s insistence that they should monitor the elections in Zimbabwe, or else …? This does not seem to agree with what you said about the USA (that the EU does not monitor the elections in the USA simply because they are not invited by the US State Department.)
Of course, I am not personally acquainted with the details of the Zimbabwe situation and therefore am not sure that the word “insistence” has ever been used. In practical and logistic terms it is not possible to have an observer mission with sufficient freedom of movement and of comment if the government does not permit it.
Then, in a Zimbabwe situation, one has the very difficult problem of an opposition, clearly under pressure, wanting international observation and the government refusing it, or imposing draconian conditions. It is then a question of what level of compromise is valid.
2.The Secretary General of the Organisation of African Unity stated the other day (in Lusaka) that Africa is capable of monitoring its own elections (without help from Europeans). Do you think these are healthy sentiments? What’s your comment on his statement.
I believe that Europeans need help from outside Europe lest we become complacent as to our own democracy. For instance, the UK had only a 59% turnout at its last elections and we need to discuss with the parties in Zambia as to how they managed to get so many thousands of voters to turn out so enthusiastically from early morning.
If there was consensus among all the parties in African countries only to have African observers, then that would be persuasive, but it is not the case. The momentum to exclude the EU is currently only coming from the establishment and from the pro-Government forces. All the evidence is that the opposition parties do not trust their governments nor, as in the Zambian situation, their electoral commissions, and therefore very much want international observation.
It is a curiously racist view to exclude European observers because they are European! The Chairperson of the ECZ was regularly attacking and trying to undermine the UK component within the EU because it was the former colonial power, even though I have spent all my political life fighting colonialism. I was even still on the South African government’s banned list following the changes of February 1990!
Which is the more colonialist position – to attack the present colonially imposed national boundaries as being artificial and unsustainable (i.e. my view) or to defend them and to use them to exclude Presidential candidates (i.e. the ECZ and GRZ view)?
3. I want to challenge your final statement, about the unanimity of the local monitors’ (negative) assessment of the Zambian elections. Your web site does not seem to have published the findings of some of the most visible local monitoring groups like the Zambia Independent Monitoring Team (ZIMT) and the National Organisation for Civic Education (NOCE), which are putatively pro-government, and ostensibly anti-EU. Is there any reason you left their reports from your web site?
I watched the ZIMT and NOCE positions very carefully and when, close to the election, they both published paid for advertisements attacking opposition parties, they clearly forfeited any claim to be independent. Had they not issued these advertisements then their conclusions would have had a claim to be included on websites that made available the conclusions of observer groups.
They also only deployed 22 observers whereas FODEP, for instance, deployed 6,500. It is difficult to be taken seriously with only such a small number of observers.
4. Finally, do you think that the flow of aid from the EU to Zambia will be affected by the government’s unfriendly reaction to your election report?
No idea. That is a question for the EC Delegation and for the Member States. There is, of course, an increasingly powerful view that good governance is essential for the management and effective utilisation of development aid.
Thank you very much, sir, for your co-operation and your precious time.
You’re welcome.
