The AEGEE Election Observation Mission (EOM) to the Estonian parliamentary elections on 1 March will be more professional than ever.  A cooperation with the Polish Forum of Young Diplomats (FMD) has been set up and after an open call two experienced mission coordinators were welcomed to the team. Read here a preview by Viktor Bezhenar and Lucrezia Aresi who will coordinate the EOM and Sławomir Szyszka, head of the Election Observation Mission of FMD.

The Polish Forum of Young Diplomats (Forum Młodych Dyplomatów – FMD) is a nation-wide youth NGO, bringing together students and recent graduates in the field of international relations. The Forum was established in 2002 and nowadays consists of 125 members and several branches in major Polish cities. In 2011, the FMD started the “Young Election Observers Program” at the initiative of Sławomir Szyszka. The program focuses mostly on networking: organising conferences on election observation, advocating for the rights of civil society observers and participating just like AEGEE in OSCE/ODIHR Human Dimension Implementation meetings.

AEGEE & FMD

The cooperation between FMD and AEGEE dates back to 2012, when the two organisations jointly applied for a grant to deploy EOMs to Georgia and Armenia. When the initiative to organise an EOM to the Estonian parliamentary elections came up, Sławomir immediately approached AEGEE. “I follow the AEGEE Election Observation Project with great interest. I admire it because it is an example of a well-conceived, organised and sustainable project that achieved quite a lot in a short period of time. We contacted AEGEE because we believed that mutual cooperation would allow us to learn from each other and improve our missions.”

The approach to election observation is very similar for both organisations. Just like AEGEE, FMD considers EOMs as a chance for young people to gain direct experience in election observation activities and both rely on OSCE/ODIHR resources to prepare participants and share results. But there are also differences: FMD missions last two weeks and focus on specific aspects of the elections and pre-election period. Sławomir: “I will arrive in Estonia two weeks in advance. I will observe the decisive part of the election campaign in the Ida-Viru county (the most north-eastern county of Estonia bordering Russia, ed.). I am particularly interested in the regulations and practices in the area of electoral finance”.

Missions by AEGEE’s Election Observation Project on the contrary typically last five days, are much more numerous and have a focus on the social, cultural and political background of the country as a whole. The cooperation between AEGEE and FMD will consist of benefiting from each others local partners, organising part of the program together and exchanging best practices on election observing and coordinating missions.  Thanks to both these similarities and differences, it will definitely be a mutual learning experience.

A great learning experience

The prospect of a learning experience was certainly the motivation for Viktor Bezhenar and Lucrezia Aresi to apply as mission coordinators. Viktor, a 23-year-old software development manager from Kyiv, has a clear purpose: “Due to the recent events in our country, many Ukrainians feel the need to monitor and understand political processes.  As I work in the software industry, I am incredibly interested in the process of e-voting (which is very advanced in Estonia, ed.) We need to establish this in Ukraine too, so I hope to learn from the Estonians and share my knowledge and ideas in my home country.”

Lucrezia & Viktor

Lucrezia (27, Milan) holds an advanced diploma in Effective Electoral Assistance and brings this experience in her approach to the mission. “I consider the elections as a process, rather than a mere event. For this reason I recognize the vital importance of the Electoral Cycle Approach, project management and international team work, in order to contribute to the transparency of the procedures. I examined in depth the political situation and the electoral system of Estonia. The country is being approached by European partners with increasing interest, and the resignation of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip and the arrival of the new Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas have opened new scenarios.”

Viktor adds that “It will sure be interesting to see how the Russian-speaking Estonian society will act under the pressure of EU-Russian relations”.

Whatever will happen around 1 March in Estonia, it will be a great experience for everyone. With 31 observers selected and a busy program, some great results are expected. Lucrezia sees the people as the biggest highlight: “There will be many observers in the field and we, as coordinators, have to arrange every aspect of the mission. But we are assisted step by step by the amazing AEGEE Election Observation Project members, who are a constant source of inspiration. Moreover we selected brilliant, passionate and motivated youths. We can’t wait to meet each other and to work together on the mission!”

Written by Marije Arentze (AEGEE-Leiden), Publications Manager of the Election Observation Project

During Autumn Agora Cagliari, the Election Observation Project was established as an official project of AEGEE-Europe. After having organised five missions in Scotland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova and two in Ukraine, the project is already preparing new missions for 2015. We spoke with the Project Manager Thomas Leszke (AEGEE-Köln), Content Manager and Publication Responsible Marije Arentze (AEGEE-Leiden) and Fundraising Responsible Anna Gumbau (AEGEE-Barcelona) to discover something more about the past year missions and their future plans.

After the first meeting during Autumn Agora Zaragoza, the Election Observation Project grew constantly and right now it has fifteen active contributors “who are literally from all corners of Europe – and even one AEGEE member from Tunisia!” as Thomas states. The adventure of the Election Observations started with the first mission in Ukraine in May, followed by Scotland in September, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine again in October and Moldova in November.

Marije was Mission Coordinator for Bosnia and Herzegovina and she was in charge of nineteen other observers who visited 45 polling stations overall. “The EOM to Bosnia and Herzegovina was an amazing experience”, Marije says. “It was my first time observing elections and I was in charge, which was an extra challenge. Everyone was very serious in his role as observer, which was great to see. The day after the mission, we gathered a lot of really sharp and critical observations, which was very rewarding to me.”

For Anna being Mission Coordinator was also very important: “Moldova was an extremely exciting destination to observe, due to its dilemma of whether strengthening their ties with the European Union or staying close to Russia.” The twenty-two observers came from nine different countries and they took the chance to understand better, and in a unique way, the political situation in the country by talking with some journalists in the Central Election Commission after the counting session. With the final report on the way, Anna gave us a sneak peak of the observation: “In general, we didn’t observe any majors flaws at the election day, but there were still several things to be improved, since a big majority of voters were not very aware of the voting procedures, the voting was sometimes not really secret, and there were even (very few) cases of group voting.”

For Moldova, the Project decided for an alternative way of funding: they launched a crowdfunding campaign managing to collect more than 900 euro in a bit more than ten days from AEGEE members and externals. This decision was made considering the fact that tickets to Moldova can be very expensive and observers needed some kind of compensations for their expenses. “Considering the fact that it was the first time that we tried it”, says Anna, “and that we organised it on a very short notice and we even had technical problems with the crowdfunding platform, I am not that disappointed with the result”. The Network responded well to the initiative, even starting one of their own like Jorge Sánchez Hernandez who launched the “sofa and blanket challenge” on behalf of AEGEE-Alicante and AEGEE-Dresden.

After this intense year the long-waited signature of the contract took place during the closing plenary of Autumn Agora Cagliari. “Although the plenary session was a bit messy and we did not have the opportunity to present the reports from our missions to Ukraine and Bosnia”, Thomas recalls, “it was a great feeling to sign our official cooperation with AEGEE-Europe and to get the support of so many AEGEE members!” A great support that was followed by another recognition.

In The Golden Times annual review, the EOP was elected as the best project of 2014 (even though the project was established officially only in late 2014). Asking about why they think so many people named the project Thomas says: “I believe that our project appeals to a wish that many AEGEE members have: to make a direct, obvious, tangible and personal contribution to our European values. We do a lot of discussing in AEGEE (which is good and necessary) but few projects have offered such concrete and challenging activities in the recent past.”  Marije adds that “what we do is very attractive: you get to travel, explore another country and meet other cultures. I cannot think of an AEGEEan who does not like that”.

What is next for the Election Observation Project? “At the moment, we are planning ten EOMs in total to countries such as Estonia, United Kingdom, Turkey, Poland, and our favourite country, Ukraine”, Thomas says. “Additionally, we might also go to the regional elections in Catalunya that were announced not too long ago. You can see the full list of 2015 EOMs on our website.” Not to forget the internal observation missions during Agorae. The EOP managed to run two OM during Spring Agora Patra and Autumn Agora Cagliari and an OM during Spring Agora Oviedo might be expected.

You can find  theElection Observation Project on Facebook or by visiting their website.

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Venezia

On October 12th 2014, the Election Observation Project of AEGEE organized an Election Observation Mission (EOM) to the General Elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was the second mission of this project after the EOM to the parliamentary and presidential elections in Ukraine on the 25th of May 2014 . Around 45 polling and voting stations in and around Sarajevo were visited during election day. 

The observers team, at 6 AM on election day, ready to start

Learning moments and eye-openers
As members of AEGEE, we realize democracy is fragile and should never be taken for granted. Therefore we aim to strengthen democratic processes and activate political participation of young people. With this in mind we took off for Bosnia and Herzegovina, hoping to contribute to the aim of fair and honest elections and to investigate the involvement of youths in the various election processes.

Being aware of the fact that our background influences our judgments and opinions, we left for Bosnia with a certain image of this country in our minds. The media in our home countries describes Bosnia as a corrupt, bankrupt country, torn apart by nationalist tensions and deprived of any hope for a brighter future. We are happy to report that our experiences during the elections do not reflect this image completely. In almost all polling stations we have visited, we met officials that were genuinely concerned about the fairness of the election procedure, especially during the vote counting. We saw vote counters working until early in the morning to ensure all ballots were checked and cross-checked. We saw almost all polling station officials handling the elections with a high level of professionalism. In addition, we were positively surprised by the transparency of the accreditation procedure for international observers. All relevant documents, even the Bosnian election law, can be found in English online in pdf format, which is exceptional compared to other countries.

One of the most complicated political systems in the world
The Bosnian political system has been named one of the most complicated in the world. The country is divided in two entities: the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), mostly populated by ethnic Croats and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), and the Republika Srpska (RS), mostly populated by ethnic Serbs. The country knows a three-headed Presidency, consisting of a Serb, a Croat and a Bosniak, controversially elected exclusively by their respective ethnic groups and controlled by the Parliament. Apart from that, each entity has its own president. The RS President has been chosen directly during the elections on the 14th of October, whereas the prime minister of FBiH is indirectly appointed by the Parliamentary Assembly. The FBiH is divided in Cantons (regional municipalities), and RS knows a National Assembly. Consequently, the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina had to fill in four different voting ballots. All inhabitants of the country voted for the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly, and next to that the inhabitants of FBiH voted for their House of Representatives of the BiH Federation Parliament and the Cantonal Assemblies, and the inhabitants of Republika Srpska voted for the National Assembly of RS and the Presidency of RS.

Map of all voting and counting stations visited in and around Sarajevo

Most people will agree that this is an extremely complicated system. We clearly saw that voters and even vote counters were having a lot of difficulties understanding the procedures. We are highly concerned that this situation detracts the legitimacy of the vote and the trust of the voters, which is harmful for the credibility of the political system. One woman said, shrugging her shoulders, while explaining the voting ballot of the FBiH parliament: “No one here has a job, so everyone tries to be a politician”.

Kako glasovati? How to vote? These posters with explanations of the voting systems were hanging in every polling station.

The position of youth
During election day, we had the chance to speak to a lot of observers and other officials. It struck us that despite the fact that a surprisingly high number of polling station officials were of younger age, young voters were underrepresented. A higher voting turnout among youths would be warmly welcomed, however it was very positive to see this amount of young people involved in the elections in another way. “At least in this way, youths learn how to do democracy”, as one observer put it.

The ethnic divisions of Bosnia and Herzegovina are frozen into place by the country’s constitution, which was not more than an annex to the 1995 Dayton peace agreements that put an end to the Bosnian war. According to this constitution, Bosnians are obliged by law to proclaim themselves as one of the three identities Bosniak, Croat or Serb, or “other”. Controversially, the “Bosnian and Herzegovinan” identity is not recognized. An observer told us the story of a friend of hers at the university. This woman did not particularly identify herself with either the Bosniak, Serb or Croat identity, but she was not allowed to register herself as “Bosnian-Herzegovinan”, because this identity does not exist according to law. She went to the principal and asked him: “What if I register myself as Eskimo?” This was allowed, because it falls under “other” identities. This woman is still registered as an Eskimo, an official recognized identity.

A busy polling station in Pale

Is there hope for Bosnia?
This anecdote is an example of what happens when the rules or the system of a country are being overtaken by reality. Whereas the older generation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is still stuck in its ethnically divided past, as the preliminary election results clearly show, the younger generation is slowly getting ready to move on.

A lot needs to happen for this country to leave its past behind. The election results unfortunately do not show much progress, but the people we spoke to, the dedication and integrity we have seen in the polling stations, the power and the drive of Bosnian youth that we have witnessed all give us hope for a brighter future for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This article aims to give a short background overview, there are way too many impressions to fit in one article. Visit us during the AEGEE-Fair at Agora Cagliari for the full report of our Mission.

Find here the press release we wrote for Blogactiv the day after the elections. 

Pictures from Roel de Natris, Boudewijn Steenhof,  Thomas Leszke and Marije Arentze

Written by Marije Arentze, AEGEE-Leiden