African countries need viable election management bodies
The Executive Director of the African Governance Monitoring Project (AFRIMAP), Ozias Tungwarara, says there is need for West African countries to engage in a long-term sustained process of transforming electoral management bodies into viable institutions.
The AFRIMAP executive director said these electoral management bodies should not only exist on the eve of elections but that they “become institutions like our courts, the executive arm of government, parliament and have a sustained bureaucracy that supports the development of the needed technical capacity.”
Mr Tungwarara said this in an interview with WADR at the launch of a report on the contributions of electoral management bodies to credible elections in West Africa on Saturday.
The report launched together with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) targets Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
Mr Tungwarara said the reason for the comparative study of the six West African countries on electoral management bodies “is essentially in recognition that democracy and democratization processes in Africa face some serious challenges.”
According to him, the challenges include the deepening and consolidating the democratic openings that were seen, especially at the end of the 1980s and early 90s.
The report’s release coincides with series of elections taking place in Africa over the next 18 months.
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