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OneWorld's doubly historic role in Africa's latest election

By Daniel Nelson

OneWorld UK’s unique election monitoring platform is playing a crucial role in the historic presidential and parliamentary elections in Guinea-Bissau on 13 April.

Historic for Portugal's former West Africa colony because no democratically elected president there has ever completed his term - all have been assassinated or deposed by coups - and because the vote is being held to restore democracy after a coup was staged between the first and second rounds of last year's elections.

In the Situation Room in Bissau

Historic, too, because this is the latest test for an election monitoring system described by then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as "perhaps the most sophisticated monitoring programme ever deployed in Africa or anywhere else".

From Wednesday about 400 specially trained "citizen monitors" have been reporting on what is happening in their neighbourhoods by sending coded SMS messages to a "Situation Room" set up by OneWorld in the capital, Bissau.

The monitors are looking out for acts of violence, suspected fraud or corruption, and any interruptions of the voting process that they witness or learn about from trusted sources.

Their information will be decoded, verified automatically and published online at www.bissauvote.com.

A data verification team of about 15 people from members organisations of the Group of Civil Society Organisations for the Elections (GOSCE) - which the OneWorld platform is supporting - are on standby. They will phone individual citizen monitors to manually verify any messages that arrive with irregularities or to request more information about any important incidents that are reported.

Monitors are also reporting from electoral campaign events and civic education activities, while others are reporting on radio coverage.

All this information is giving civil society groups real-time information from hundreds of localities in every one of the country's 37 sectors. Problems can be spotted as soon as they occur, instead of being the subject of claims and counter-claims long after the election is over.

For the first time, monitoring groups will have solid information about the conduct of campaigning (do campaign events have proper security? Are women participating? Are campaign messages peaceful?); the quantity and quality of civic education activities run by the National Electoral Commission and civil society organisations; and media coverage (was it partisan or inflammatory?)

After the polls, the monitors - all of whom are Guinea Bissau citizens - will continue to report on potential areas of tension or acts of violence.

"Local election monitoring organisations have some real advantages over international monitors," says OneWorld's Jeffrey Allen in Bissau. "They can be everywhere; they know the terrain; they speak the language; they can recognise when something is not right because they know their local area, the local people, and the local dialect."

In the past their impact has been limited because they have been unable to use most of the information they collected until weeks - sometimes months - after the elections.

"By the time they know enough to comment meaningfully on the conduct of an election, the world has already decided what it thinks and moved on," Allen explains. "And often their own citizens have made up their minds based on rumours and conjecture - and in some cases even taken to the streets."

Now, he says, OneWorld's election technology - previously used in Senegal (www.senevote2012.com), Sierra Leone (www.salonevote.com) and Mali (www.malivote.com) - "enables monitors to react to events as they are happening and comment publicly on the overall conduct of the elections, backed with hard evidence.

"This process is helping local civil society take back control of the narrative of how elections are conducted in their own country."

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* Media monitors are associated with the media training organisation Voz de Paz (Voice of Peace), which is one of the six GOSCE member organisations participating in monitoring. The other monitors are associated with Tiniguena, Alternag, National Youth Council (CNJ), Guinean Human Rights League (LDH), and ASV-CPLP.

** The project is being implemented by OneWorld and GOSCE with funding from the European Union.

For more information about OneWorld’s text message and mapping technology and its use in other countries and contexts, download the slide deck or contact:

In English:
Jeffrey Allen
Global Programme Coordinator
OneWorld
jeffrey.allen@oneworld.org
En Français:
Kevin Adomayakpor
Regional Manager
OneWorld
kevin.ado@oneworld.org
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Grupo das Organizações da Sociedade Civil para as Eleições

Monitorização do Processo Eleitoral

Eleições Presidenciais e Legislativas 2014

10 a 16 de Abril de 2014

O Grupo das Organizações da Sociedade Civil das Organizações para as Eleições, criado após o golpe de estado de 12 de Abril de 2012, acredita que a resolução dos problemas que assolam a Guiné-Bissau deve passar por uma abordagem inclusiva, entre os decisores políticos, a comunidade internacional e a sociedade civil, que permita uma maior proximidade dos cidadãos do processo político, o maior empenho na justiça, defesa intransigente dos interesses comuns e reconciliação nacional.

No âmbito das eleições presidenciais e legislativas de 13 de Abril de 2014, GOSCE estabeleceu uma actividade de nacional de monitorização do processo eleitoral através da mobilização de 400 cidadãos-monitores  presentes em todo o território nacional, provenientes das seguintes organizações-membro: AiFA-PALOP, ASV-CPLP, ALTERNAG, AMIC,CNJ, LGDH, MAC, PPM-GB, REMPSECAO,TINIGUENA E VOZ di PAZ.

Durante o período de 9 a16 de Abril, 2014, 400 monitores[1] irão enviar dados via SMS sobre o desenrolar da campanha eleitoral, a cobertura dos meios de comunicação, em particular da rádio, meio de comunicação privilegiado na Guiné-Bissau, as actividades de educação cívica eleitoral e sobre o processo de votação nas oito regiões e no Sector Autónomo de Bissau. Estes dados em tempo real estarão disponíveis no website www.bissauvote.com.

Para seguir o trabalho de campo dos monitores, o Grupo das Organizações da Sociedade Civil para as Eleições GOSCE instalou um Centro de Operações na sede da ONG Tiniguena para acompanhar o processo eleitoral e consequentemente:

A instituição da Sala de Operações coincide com o objectivo do Grupo em reafirmar a cidadania activa como forma de consolidação da democracia na Guiné-Bissau, promovendo a maior participação e inclusão do eleitorado nacional em todo o processo.

Este exercício permitirá ao GOSCE e à Sociedade Civil, em geral, analisar internamente os dados recolhidos pelos monitores no terreno, com decurso da primeira volta das eleições, emitindo comunicados e recomendações às entidades competentes, sempre que necessário. 

Assim, GOSCE espera contribuir para o desenvolvimento do processo eleitoral com base nos princípios da liberdade, transparência democrática, respeito pelos direitos humanos e liberdades fundamentais.

 

De 10 a 16 de Abril de 2014 , o GOSCE convida-o a visitar, em horários programados , a Centro de Operações sita na:  

ONG Tiniguena, Bairro de Belém (Zona de Las Palmeiras) · Apartado 667  ·  Bissau  ·  República da Guiné-Bissau

Telemóvel: + (245) 673 51 11/ 548 97 66

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[1] Os monitores foram recrutados localmente e são geralmente cidadãos socialmente engajados em suas comunidades por meio de associações, movimentos e ONGs da sociedade civil. Eles foram treinados e têm a função de acompanhar o processo eleitoral nos seus círculos eleitorais e enviar informações sobre as mesmas para o Centro de Operações. Eles não têm acesso às mesas de voto, mas têm ligações com os cidadãos eleitores e se informam regularmente sobre o desenrolar do processo junto destes. São essas opiniões que serão vinculadas, analisadas ​​e transmitidos para o Centro de Operações para a divulgação e a tomada de medidas caso seja necessário.


How SMS & Google mapping technologies helped secure free & fair elections
[3-min version]

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