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Introduction
Election observation is a valuable tool for improving the quality of elections and helps build public
confidence in the honesty of electoral processes. It can highlight on possible areas where the
electoral process could be flawed thereby helping to promote the civil and political rights of
participants. It can help detect and deter manipulation and fraud where such practices obtain. In
the event that observers publish positive reports on a particular election, election observation can
help establish trust in electoral management bodies and legitimise both the election results and the
government that emerge from the elections. For this reason, all aspects that have a propensity to
curtail the democratic participation of any section of the polity have to be scrutinised against the
fundamental parameters and guidelines for the successful management and holding of democratic
elections. In this breadth, elections have to ensure no member of a society is disadvantaged and
hindered from fully participating in the democratic processes of electing and being elected into
governance offices. This paper, therefore, advocates that election observation should take note of
the issue of gender equality in electoral processes.
Women’s full and equal participation and the integration of gender perspectives into all levels of the
electoral processes enhance democratic practices in elections and for this reason, election
observer missions should be prepared to render an election not free and fair on the basis of
significant transgressions of the electoral rights of women. It is my submission that every aspect of
the electoral process be observed for its compliance with the general objective of ensuring
compliance with international obligations and standards of affording men and women equal
opportunities to be electors or candidates in elections. Election observers should therefore look at
issues like the legal framework, electoral system, election administration, media and political party
operations for ways in which they inhibit or promote the full participation of women in elections.
To give credence to calls for a gendered perspective towards election observation, observer
missions should be gender sensitive themselves and more women, unlike the case with both
SADC and AU missions now, should have more women occupying top positions in the observer
missions.