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U.S. Scrambled To Find Observers For Pakistani Vote
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The European Union is sending a 100-member mission to observe the Pakistani vote. Among other duties, observers typically visit polling stations, interview voters and party officials, and confer with media groups to determine the extent and openness of news coverage.
Most of Democracy International's 35-member delegation arrived yesterday for Monday's election. "This is definitely something you'd like more time to organize," said Eric Bjornlund, co-founder of the five-year-old consulting firm and a former staff member at the National Democratic Institute.
Democracy International is not taking on the mission totally green. It has been working since last spring with the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), a new coalition of Pakistani civil society groups created to observe the election, educate voters, advocate reform and publicize government abuses. FAFEN will deploy about 20,000 Pakistani observers on Election Day -- in a country with more than 80 million voters going to 60,000 stations.
Although Pakistan's vote will be the first Democracy International will monitor as an organization, it has recruited a number of recognized experts on Pakistan and elections to participate, such as C. Christine Fair of the Rand Corp., Xenia Dormandy of Harvard University, Susan Hyde of Yale University and J. Alexander Thier of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
"We were able to find a very capable group on very short notice. A number of people have rearranged schedules to go to Pakistan for more than a week," Bjornlund said.
Former congressman Jim Moody (D-Wis.), who has observed elections in Ukraine and Bulgaria, will lead the delegation. "It's definitely worth doing," he said in an interview. "The world will be watching. It's a tremendously important moment for Pakistan and for the United States."
Other U.S. democracy groups are skeptical. The National Democratic Institute monitored Pakistan's elections in 1988 and 1990, but it turned down the latest State Department request because a nationwide election mission in a country with more than 160 million people requires much more advance work and security preparation. Instability has been a growing problem in Pakistan in recent months, with the assassination in December of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a spate of suicide bombings.
"Given the time constraints, we came to the conclusion that the alternative was a limited delegation that would not have national coverage, and that wouldn't have provided a national perspective of the election. So we declined," said NDI President Kenneth Wollack.
