Next year, Colombia will hold legislative and presidential elections and, as it has done for almost two decades, the Electoral Observation Mission (EOM) will accompany the process. As Diego Rubiano, coordinator of the Electoral Political Observatory of Democracy of the Ministry of Education, says, this civil society organization will control “the belly of democracy, which is not as romantic as the heart, it is not as reasonable as the head, but it is extremely important because if someone is shot in the stomach there is nothing to do,” he says, apologizing for his violent analogy.
In 2006, the country experienced the conquest of territories and democratic spaces by illegal groups. On the one hand, in the municipalities dominated by the paramilitaries, there was a high electoral participation, 70 or 80%, and only candidates. On the other hand, where the FARC and the ELN were located, whoever voted was declared a military objective. Added to these conditions was the intention of presidential re-election, something foreign to the DNA of the country’s politics. This is how Alejandra Barrios, director of the MOE, remembers: “We left the exercise of democracy to political parties alone and citizens began to disappear out of fear. They found themselves in big cities with a very complicated national context and, at the same time, the re-election of President Uribe was approaching.
Faced with this panorama, several civil society organizations (Viva la Ciudadanía, Centrales Obreras, the Catholic Church, Minga and CINEP, among others) have asked the Presidency of the Republic to create an electoral “mega-observation”. “Not only did the OAS come, but the European Union, the Carter Center and other international organizations were also present,” Barrios recalls. The answers did not arrive and in January 2006 (two months before the elections) they decided to do it themselves. They relied on the shoulders of each organization, the Ombudsman’s Office and the Swedish Embassy, which brought in people from the IIDH/Capel Electoral Promotion and Advice Center to train them on the subject.
“It was the last week of February and we had two trainers: one from Capel and the other from the Dominican Republic. And they asked me where we were starting. I told them: ‘here: what is election observation?’. I remember they opened my eyes, looked at me and said: ‘But the elections are in two weeks.’ This was the beginning of the journey of this platform which has observed so far 141 electoral processes for bodies including the Presidency of the Republic, the Congress, the different local authorities, the Municipal Youth Councils, the participatory budgets, the Victims’ Participation Round Tables, the School Governments and the cafe elections.
“One of the most striking and in which I put a lot of energy are the school governments, which sometimes seem distant, but as an educational process it is very important. There we not only train observers, but also candidates so that they know what can be done, what is good and what is not in the process of seeking votes”, reflects Rubiano.
Collaborative work was essential to cover the entire territory. The MOE is made up of 35 regional coordinations, which do not depend on the geographical distribution of the country, but on the desire to observe, and which articulate and develop their work through a network which integrates more than 500 non-governmental, social, trade union, cultural, religious, academic and citizen organizations.
The MOE not only relied on individual organizations as a driving force, it also called upon the experience and generosity of academics and experts who contributed their knowledge and information to the construction of, for example, its risk map methodology. It combines indicators that measure factors indicative of electoral fraud and factors of violence, which can interfere with the normal conduct of elections. These maps make it possible to analyze and formulate recommendations for undertaking institutional actions.
An important part of observation lies in examining media coverage of electoral processes. 20 years ago, this control was done with a ruler, a tape recorder and a VHS; Today, 12 faculties of social communication in the country are connected. The Ministry of Education holds meetings with each media outlet to give them recommendations and, according to Barrios, has identified a positive development: “Before, electoral activity was covered: if the candidate was in a certain place, he transported two children and handed out tamales.
What happens between elections?
If you only work during elections, what do you do the rest of the time? is a question Rubiano is asked frequently. To respond, he acknowledges: “In Colombia there are always elections, I don’t know if it’s good or bad, I won’t pass judgment. Whatever participation process they call us to, we go for it.” But above all, he says that the observation is permanent, because the country has a particular cycle, in which, after the electoral processes, proposals for reforms almost always arrive. There, the MOE is still present and carries out citizen control. “This is part of the observation exercise, because it is not only about looking at how our leaders are chosen, but also how they are controlled, regulated and how the entities that exercise these functions do it. Every electoral process is a learning process, which leaves us with something new,” adds Rubiano.
In addition, the Ministry of Education makes available to citizens the Lupa Legislative, Electoral Data, Batteries with Voting and Lupa Contractual platforms, which contain information related to electoral processes, tools to organize them in a transparent manner, monitoring of bills related to the political-electoral issue and the inclusion or spaces to report anomalies or irregularities.
A country that has evolved
Looking back, the director says Colombia has undoubtedly evolved: “We are in cycles of violence, which are our backdrop, but this country has changed a lot. » When the Ministry of the Environment started the observation, information on the results, for example, was not public. Today, the Civil Status Office publishes it in an understandable and disaggregated manner, which allows analysis beyond perception. “It is possible to have a much more scientific way of approaching political and electoral realities,” adds Barrios.
The view of politicians has also evolved and there is an interest in financing electoral campaigns. In this sense, the Ministry of Education is discussing with Transparency for Colombia, which has allowed “more complex readings, which even allow more interesting journalistic investigations. This also means that pollsters are starting to include other topics,” says Barrios. “You have a more informed civil society. Ultimately, elections are not about parties and candidates: the main actor is the citizen, the one who decides who to vote for.”
20 years after its creation, the MOE continues to work with the same audacity and the same conviction as on the first day. While it faces funding challenges due to adjustments from one of its main donors, the European Union, and in an election year in which it identifies not only polarization, but also radicalization, it is committed to remaining independent – but not neutral, they clarify, because they define democracy and it is already a position – to continue exercising the right that citizens have to participate in the formation, exercise and control of political power.
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