African ministers discuss electoral flaws

PANA)-- African foreign ministers meeting on Thursday, January 27,eugene came under pressure from foreign partners on the need to correct the continent’s electoral flaws that have precipitated the kind of post-election crisis in Cote d’Ivoire.

Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lene Espersen told the opening session of the AU’s Executive Council meeting that despite overall progress in the field of democratisation, the challenge of organising free and fair elections and lack of proper state institutions constituted a worrying trend in Africa.
‘It is unfortunate that recently, we have seen a number of challenges to electoral processes and institutions, latest in Cote d’Ivoire,’ she said.

Espersen added, however, that while those incidences were disappointing, ‘the continent’s firm response has shown that Africa possess a well-developed framework of agreed democratic standards and a set of institutions to deal with such challenges.’

Also speaking, UN Under Secretary-General Abdoulie Janneh said the approval of strong democratic ideals by the AU, seeking to improve good governance in Africa, was progressing. ‘The adoption of the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Good Governance further attests to Africa’s firm conviction and commitment to establishing governance architecture to strengthen this agenda,’ Janneh said.

The UN official urged African leaders to own up to the fact that the vision of a fully-democratic continent remained just a dream. ‘We have to accept that there are still gaps between our governance vision and the complex and difficult realities across our vast and diverse continent,’ Janneh warned. ‘Undeniably, electoral processes in some of our countries have been burdened with challenges that need to be better understood and addressed.’

On his part, the Japanese State Secretary for Foreign Minister, Takeaki Matsumoto, said his country was willing to pursue more robust relations with the African Union in three fields. ‘The first pillar of Japan’s policy towards Africa is contributing to peace and stability,’ the minister said.

He listed the second pillar as improving contributions to Africa’s development through relief aid, adding that in this aspect, Japan is offering Africa $380 million for disaster preparedness and counter-disaster measures, and that Japan wants to improve trade relations with Africa through increased investments and improved health care services.

The third pillar, Matsumoto said, is to cooperate with Africa on delivering aid promised to Africa to address the climate change problem and cooperating with Africa on global issues.

The AU foreign ministers, meeting to put forward a strong agenda for the African leader’s meeting here over the weekend, are expected to put emphasis on the implementation of the various charters on elections and democracy.

The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, adopted at the 8th Ordinary Session of the AU Assembly in January 2007, remains largely out of operation because most of the 53 African states have failed to ratify it.

The Charter has received 29 signatures and only eight countries, including Ethiopia, Ghana and Mauritania, have ratified it. It requires at least 15 ratifications to enter into force.

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