WHAT IS ELECTORAL VIOLENCE?

Electoral violence is a subset of political violence and thus conceptually similar to communal
violence, rebellion and civil wars. It can be defined as coercive force, directed towards electoral
actors and/or objects, that occurs in the context of electoral competition – can occur before,
during or after elections and it can target a variety of actors, including candidates, activists, poll
workers, election observers, journalists and voters. Recent analysis of patterns and trends in
electoral violence have found that it is a global phenomenon affecting mainly electoral
authoritarian or hybrid states, particularly those in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.Electoral
conflict and violence can be defined as any random or organized act or threat to intimidate,
physically harm, blackmail, or abuse a political stakeholder in seeking to determine, delay, or to
otherwise influence an electoral process. Election security can be defined as the process of
protecting electoral stakeholders, information, facilities, and events. Electoral conflict and
violence can be defined as any random or organized act or threat to intimidate, physically harm,
blackmail, or abuse a political stakeholder in seeking to determine, delay, or to otherwise
influence an electoral process. Election security can be defined as the process of protecting
electoral stakeholders, information, facilities, and events.

Electoral conflict and violence can occur at five intervals in an election chronology:

 Identity conflict can occur during the registration process when

 refugees or other conflict-forced migrants cannot establish or reestablish their officially
recognized identities.
 Campaign conflict can occur as rivals seek to disrupt the opponents’ campaigns,
intimidate voters and candidates, and use threats and violence to influence participation
in the voting.
 Balloting conflict can occur on Election Day when rivalries are played out at the polling
station.
 Results conflict can occur with disputes over election results and the inability of judicial
mechanisms to resolve disputes a fair, timely, and transparent manner.
 Representation conflict can occur when elections are organized as “zero sum” events and
“losers” are left out of participation in governance
CASE STUDY OF ZIMBABWE

Zimbabwe entered a state of violent political crisis in the aftermath of the presidential elections
held in two rounds on March 29 and June 27, 2008. President Robert Mugabe led a campaign of
terror against the opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and its supporters
in the lead up to the electoral process. State-sponsored violence resulted in massive human rights
violations, including rape, torture, and forced disappearance. Despite winning the June election,
President Mugabe continued to implement brutal attacks against the political opposition.
Responses by the United Nations and the African Union failed to undertake effective measures to
address the crisis. Civil society groups, such as Human Rights Watch and International Crisis
Group, swiftly responded and condemned the repression and human rights abuses of the
government. Despite the establishment of a unity government through the signing of the Global
Political Agreement, the situation remained dangerous as political reforms were not implemented
and Mugabe’s party, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)
continued to engage in political violence.

Since 2000, state security forces in Zimbabwe have committed acts of violence against thousands
of civilians, targeting primarily political opponents and aid workers. Human rights violations
have included imprisonment, enforced disappearance, murder, torture, and rape. In addition,
President Robert Mugabe’s national policies led to a severe economic collapse and grave failure
of the national health system. Failed monetary policies, currency devaluations, corruption, and a
land seizure policy that devastated Zimbabwe’s once thriving agricultural sector, led to an
economic crash that left 80% of the population unemployed and hyper-inflation at approximately
231 million percent. In particular, the land seizure policy transferred thriving farmland from
competent farmers to Mugabe supporters, simultaneously displacing over one million civilians
and allowing the farms to fail. This also resulted in a resource crisis, leaving much of the country
without welfare, food, or the ability to afford healthcare. A widespread emigration of medical
personnel from the country, failure of sanitation infrastructure, and near universal poverty fueled
an increase in mortality and disease.

The cholera epidemic, which began in August 2007, left approximately 4,000 dead and 90,000
gravely ill with limited access to medical care or humanitarian aid, and with a threat of spreading
in the region. Human Rights Watch identified the crisis’ “simple cause:” “the ruling ZANU-PF
leadership's diversion of resources away from basic public health towards sustaining its
illegitimate rule, personal enrichment and oppressing its MDC opponents.”
 Electoral violence might be thought of as a type of political violence thatis defined by four
criteria: 1] the severity of the violence, 2] the timing of the violence, 3] the actors perpetrating
the violence and 4] the targets of the violence

Severity of the violence

Violence severity can be conceptualized in several ways, and researchers have developed various
coding schemes to designate as being more or less severe. For example, Straus and Taylor
[2012]divide violence into three levels of severity. At the lower end, violenceis defined by
security forces breaking up rallies, partysupporters brawling in the streets, candidate
disqualifications and confiscation of opposition newspapers. A second level of violence is
defined by high-level assassinations and targeted murders combined with long-term arrests of
party leaders and the use of torture. At the highest level of severity, violence is a highly violent
campaign with generalized violence, meaning repeated, widespread physical attacks leading to a
substantial number of deaths.

Timing of violence

Violence can happen before or after an election, however the motivations behind each are often
very different.Pre- election violence is often intended to influence voting behavior, either
through discouraging voters from turning out or coercing them into supporting particular
candidates. Post-election violence is often for the purpose of protesting an election result or
repressing protests by supporters of the losing party.

Perpetrators of violence

Understanding who perpetrates violence and why a critical dimension of electoral violence is.
Collier and Vicente [2012] argue that violence becomes attractive to incumbents when they are
no longer able to afford to buy necessary votes to remain in power. Thus, violence is actually a
strategy of weakened, cash –strapped government. Straus and Taylor 2012 find that most
election violence in Africa has been perpetrated by incumbent government and their supporters,
even when those incumbents are relatively strong. Opposition supporters do become more likely
to be perpetrators of violence in the post-election period, thought post –election violence is still
more likely to involve incumbents than members of the opposition.

Victims of violence

Electoral violence is not experienced equally by all victims. Violence can be targeted at either
voters or at politicians themselves, and each has very different means to deal with the threats of
violence. The existing evidence also suggests that certain demographic groups are more prone to
certain types of electoral violence. According to Hoglund and Piyarathne (2009) ,they found that
activists from the lower classes were victims of more serious violence than the local elites,
pointing to socio-economics class as important in explaining the different types of violence
experienced.

Frequency of electoral violence

This is the examination of electoral violence cross-nationally according to questions such as, “Is
there evidence that the government harassed the opposition?” Were there riots and protests after
the election? If yes, did the government use violence against the demonstrators? and “Was there
significant violence involving civilian deaths immediately before ,during ,or after the election?”

Causes of electoral violence

The origins and causes of electoral violence

According to many analysts, the elections are not the root cause of violence. Indeed, the elections
are perceived as a catalyst or accelerator of violence. However, the elections may escalate
existing tensions, especially when they are not credible. The remote causes of electoral violence
are often related to the poorly managed, ill-managed, or unmanaged crises.

Electoral violence takes place more frequently in countries emerging from political instability,
civil war, or coup. In such contexts, the elections stiffen the positions of formerly conflicting
parties, who use violence as the only means to express themselves. It should be also noted that
electoral violence takes place more often in a context of democratic transition or disarmament
and demobilization following civil war; real or alleged rigging of elections; major challenges
involving ethnic groups, clans, economic powers, and political actors; a minor difference
between the candidates’ results; unclear or disputed legal framework; non-impartial management
bodies; lack of transparency, including electoral data management, proven or alleged fraud in the
electoral process; first-past-the-post system; exclusion of specific communities during the
electoral process.

Structural causes

These are the social and economic conditions that influence political life. The level of income of
a society may matter for rates of political violence , and existing scholarship suggests that poorer
countries are more prone to civil wars.

Ethnic diversity may also matter for electoral violence. This is also in line with how people make
their moral choices. In developing countries, most people are relativists they believe that
violence is the answer to fair elections .There is some evidence that competitive elections in
developing countries tend to reinforce ethnic boundaries. for example ,Eifert et al (2010) analyze
survey date form African countries and find that respondents are more likely to self-indentify in
ethnic terms the closer they are surveyed to an election. When also ethnic diversity is combined
with a political system dominated by patron-client relationships and a longer history of social
conflict between ethnic group, violence becomes considerably more likely. One of the means by
which this can manifest itself is through the government’s ability to grant land rights to some
ethnic groups and deny them to others. Thisis a form of patronage that several scholars have
noted is related to electoral violence, as several ongoing social conflicts are at least partly rooted
in perceptions of unequal or unfair land rights.

International causes

Several international variables may matter for predicting election violence. One of these is
international aid aimed at strengthening democratic institutions. These include resources given to
political parties, civil society organizations, the media and election officials. When elections run
smoothly, expectations are clear and results

The presence of international election monitors. International election observation mission have
become increasingly common since 1990.govrnment may permit observers to oversee an election
but employ violence and other intimidation actics well in advance of the mission’s arrival in
country. According to Daxecker (2012) he said that when election fraud take place and election
monitors are present, those monitors may actually contribute to higher levels of violence. He
found out that international observers lend credibility to opposition claims that an election result
favoring the incumbent is fraudulent, increasing the likelihood of the opposition protesting the
results. This subsequently leads to a violent crackdown by the incumbent

They are also absolutists people who believe that violence is the most effective communicative
tool such as the opposition groups may find that violence is the most effective communicative
tool to catch observers’ attention and to target an international audience. Salehyan (2015) show
that elections with observer missions are characterized by significantly more deaths than those
without observer missions. The scholar also agree with the mechanism behind that they may be
greater incentives to provoke violence as a way to draw international attention and discredit
elections that a group does not think it can win.

Consequences of electoral violence

Electoral violence have several consequences both to the voters and the broader political system.

 Voters may be scared away from future political participation and lose trust in political
institutions.
 Politicians may choose not to run, and opposition parties may be unable to operate.
 Violence may also create a norm of violent behavior in future elections
 There is also vandalism of government property
 Citizens may suffer from emotional torture and death
 The economy will decline which will be caused by investors leaving the country
STRATEGIES USED TO PREVENT ELECTORAL VIOLENCE

A number of strategies are used to manage and prevent electoral violence. These strategies are to
a varying degree applied by different actors. The actors involved in managing and preventing
electoral violence include 1) local and international monitoring and observer missions; and 2)
national, regional and local dispute resolution and mediation missions. The bodies involved in
these activities range from public authorities, political parties, an electoral commission, religious
organisations, civil society, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and traditional authorities
such as chiefs or clan leaders. Five main types of strategies can be identified. First, the presence
of monitors can be instrumental in preventing electoral violence through naming and shaming
mechanisms and by creating awareness of tensions building up. Second, mediation can be carried
out in high-tension situations to solve an ongoing election-related dispute. Third, the legal
framework and institutional design provides the basis for combating impunity and for creating
conditions discouraging violence. Fourth, law enforcement highlights the deterring function of
security forces. Fifth, voter-focused strategies emphasise the importance of long-term prevention
though the cultivation of democratic norms and tolerance in society at large

Running Several types of electoral violence prevention programs have the potential to
successfully reduce the risk of violence.
http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/index.php/crises/crisis-in-zimbabwe

Shared Securities, Share Elections by Charles Taylor,PH.D

Http;//www.zimbabwesituation.com>new

Best practices for the prevention of electoral violence by C Taylor

https://www.herald.co.zw.local

file:///C:/Users/guest-user/Downloads/Understanding%20electoral%20violence%20to%20better
%20prevent%20it%20_%20UNOWAS.html

http://www.electoralviolenceproject.com/

https://www.accord.org.za/publication/strategies-to-prevent-and-manage-electoral-violence/

Policy &Practice Brief