Africa-Press – Malawi. Political scientists highlight methods political parties use to win elections and how the methods have led to the decline of democracy
By Deogratias Mmana:
Political scientists have exposed rigging elections strategies which political parties use.
The strategies were revealed on Thursday night during a webinar presentation organised by the Political Science Association –Malawi.
The panelists included Nic Cheeseman who is Professor of Democracy and Director of the Centre for Elections, Accountability and Representation at the University of Birmingham; Chrispine Mphande, Political, History and Development analyst and lecturer at Mzuzu University and political science lecturer at the Catholic University, Sainala Kalebe, among others.
In his presentation, Cheeseman said while more elections are now taking place globally, democracy is in decline since 2006 because leaders are becoming better at manipulating and rigging elections.
That is why, he said, incumbents usually tend to win.
Some of the factors that make parties in government to win elections include an inherent incumbency bias, more media attention, better ability to shape the political agenda, election manipulation and rigging.
According to Cheeseman, rigging is a global business with experts who work for governments and presidents and use multiple strategies.
One way the government does to favour the incumbent president is to make sure that his name is put at the top of the ballot paper regardless of the alphabetical order but this is done in a clever way.
Gerrymandering is another strategy of designing the seats for Parliament so that the government gets more seats from the same number of voters. Here, the manipulator creates a census process to make it look like there are more of their supporters and creates more seats in their areas using the census that has been framed as a way of legitimizing the more seats.
The advantage of gerrymandering is that there is no need for campaign, no spending money or being a better candidate but “you get them by virtue of fixing the system.”
Manipulating the electoral register is another strategy governments use, according to Cheeseman.
Digital politics has also become another way used by the governments where experts hack into databases, there electoral register and into the electoral results process or using disinformation to keep opposition supporters away from the polls or rival supporters.
Opposition parties can also use disinformation.
“One of the things we have seen in recent elections in a number of countries in Africa is attempts by some parties to basically stop opposition supporters or rival supporters going to the polling stations by creating fake news about levels of violence around those polling stations to stop people going to the polls who might vote for the opposition,” Cheeseman said.
He said misinformation that is seen around elections is actually designed to stop rival supporters voting as well as to mobilize own supporters
In the Sub Saharan region, the common and standard election manipulation is vote buying. Cheeseman said vote buying is at between 50-60 percent in Africa.
Sometimes presidents block opposition leaders from participating in elections through various ways.
According to the expert, sometimes on the polling day, the government panics when it sees that it is losing and resorts to using poor quality strategies like tippex or changing figures.
Cheeseman said one of the best ways to detect rigging is to have good party agent coverage and good civil society coverage of polling stations.
In his presentation, Mphande said handouts are common in Malawi for both the ruling party and the opposition with the difference that those in the government have an upper advantage to distribute both cash and cloth.
He also said in Malawi, both the government and opposition have created no-go zone areas.
Mphande also pointed out that both sides in Malawi are already doing misinformation in their campaign trail.
Secretary General of the Political Science Association -Malawi Makhumbo Munthali said the webinar was organized to give Malawians a reflection on elections and how they are rigged as the country approaches the general elections this September.
In an interview on the rigging, national coordinator for the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace Lewis Msiyadungu said rigging elections would result in putting in office unsuitable people who have no interest in the nation.
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