Conference notes EGMONT

Summary; this is not an official record of proceedings and specific remarks are not necessarily attributable.

Vidar Helgesen first offered a critical account of the factors contributing to the backlash against democracy in parts of the world. More governments are restricting the opportunities for NGOs, restricting the freedom of speech, and speaking out more actively against democracy. Mr Helgesen's message was clear: the time is ripe for new thinking and more effective approaches for democracy building. He detailed the new strategies and addressed the challenges ahead. He presented the new IDEA programme for democracy building and elaborated on the lessons learned. Finally, he focused on the capacity for democracy to deliver.

A diverse world

Democracy, cornerstone of a free and fair world order, cannot be imposed from outside but there is "a need for democracy to be built from inside", stressed Vidar Helgesen, Secretary General of IDEA. As there has been a setback for democracy and democracy promotion in certain regions and countries, the picture of democracy building has becoming very complex. Vidar Helgesen pointed to some critical issues.

One is competition. The world faces competing trends between integration and division. The world is interconnected as never before in terms of economy, communication, human interaction, security & political terms. Divisions are seen in terms of values, beliefs, political systems, economically strong performing powers holding up other political models than the democratic one, energy prices. There are some elements of more comfort for autocrats.

Another issue is increasing frustration in many regions, in particular in Latin America, with the lack of social development resulting from democratization, with the lack of ability of democratic institutions to deliver on development. There is a questioning of the effectiveness of foreign aid and the legitimacy of foreign democracy assistance.

Furthermore, there is increasing global polarization that goes together with the repercussions of the fight against terrorism and the situation in Iraq and the Middle East. This has affected democratization, partly because "the so-called freedom agenda of the US has been, rightly or wrongly, intertwined with the situation in Iraq that democracy has been tainted in parts of the world or at least it has provided an excuse for autocrats to taint it", explained Mr Helgesen. This agenda has caused many to talk about Western double standards and hidden agendas behind democracy promotion, which affects the field of democracy promoters.

New approaches for democracy building

Against this background, Mr Helgesen stressed that the time is ripe for new thinking and "more effective approaches for democracy building. He felt that "Europe should play a more decisive role in defining such a strategy, and to draw on lessons learned. It is time for the EU to move beyond the successes of enlargement and articulate value based policy for supporting democracy globally".

Mr Helgesen then draw the attention to challenges related to the Middle East, to the prejudices and obstacles that should be addressed on both sides. He indicated that the quest for democracy in the Arab World is rising. Political parties are increasingly active, civil society organisations are becoming more vocal, a press becoming more daring - but, among these actors, there is also a sense of mistrust of Western intentions. Authoritarian regimes can thus continue to manoeuvre in the political space: they invoke Western threats to national sovereignty...
In the West, in particular in Washington, there is no much talk about democracy since 9/11. A return to realpolitik can be observed and is further strengthened by the situation in Iran. So, trust needs to be rebuild.

A new IDEA program for democracy building

International IDEA is creating a new programme for the Arab World that will take into account the lessons learned from this region and other regions. Broader lessons can be applied to different situations in the world and they point to the need for processes driven by national actors, such as civil and political society, the media, the governmental systems that support change. Helgesen elaborated on the lessons emerging from the assessment of the democracy building landscape.
Mr Helgesen gave a summary of some lessons:

• the political society should be supported by the development agencies, donors and international organisations;
• there is a need for building specialised professional networks; professional knowledge is lacking about election management, constitution-building processes;
• long-term engagement is needed and integrated processes;
• multilateral partnerships of different entities and a careful, context sensitive sequencing of assistance to electoral processes are needed;
• there is a need to look into what constitutes effective political party assistance;
• a continuing challenge is women in politics; there is still gross under-representation of women in politics.

To support the democracy in the Middle East, Mr Helgesen stressed that it should be done through international partnerships.
As the UN is the best institution that will be able to stand beyond suspicions of political bias, of using hidden agenda's, he called the UN "to step up the plate, both in terms of peace and democracy". Regional organisations, such as the UA, are critical and increasingly important, even though they have difficulties. IDEA is working with the League of Arab States - which is far behind the UA and the OAS in developing a policy for democracy - on an initiative to establish a forum of Arab election management policy. The EU has a special role to play and should react more resolutely as a peace broker in the Middle East. Furthermore, interregional South-South cooperation need to be high on the list of strategic priorities, according to Mr Helgesen, to contribute to bridging the confidence gap and to expose Western minds to some innovative thinking. He added that " if we wish to support democracy, we should convey the message that democracy is not a Western concept only".

The capacity of democracy to deliver

Mr Helgesen urged to focus more on the capacity of democracy to deliver. He warned against unrealistic promises to gain power. "Donor support should have a sobering objective before the democratic change and have a stronger and well targeted material support once the democratic government has assumed its functions. It should also include the political sideline!" Furthermore, development and providing provisional basic services have an exceptional importance.

This enquires international engagement at the level of the direct assistance and at the one of contributing to a more predictable international economic environment, including on trade, that enables the states to protect its citizens.

He concluded by reiterating that "international commitment should be coherent, measured and persistent with a long-term vision. There are no quick fixes in democracy building!"

Q & A Session

On the question of protecting the minorities in a political system where the majority is democratically elected, Mr Helgesen answered that this issue is fundamental. Electoral democracy is not the only process for building sustainable democracies. The design of the electoral system is in a great number of countries not at all in tune with the reality, because it has been developed on the basis of colonial structures or at times, under influence of the dominating donor country. How these systems can ensure that these minorities are not left out is an important question.

On the perestroika in Russia, IDEA doesn't concentrate much on Europe, because of competition with the OSCE. Mr Helgesen said that there are signs that provoke questions like "What did the West do? Was there enough attention for alternative politics, contest of power?" Now, Russia is not so different from other democracy building challenges.

On the question whether economic development comes first, Mr Helgesen doesn't take the position that democracy should be valued only against its capacity to create economic development.

Mr Helgesen agreed on the fact that "political parties can be an obstacle to development. Political parties are still universally distrusted, but if human development be sustainable, you need tools to hold governments to account".

On democracy in the EU, Mr Helgesen repeated that IDEA doesn't do operational work in Europe, but its projects and activities could be useful. The Nederlands for example used the democracy assessment methodology tool from IDEA.

Why IDEA has not more than 8 EU members? Mr Helgesen is confident to get many new EU members, but IDEA Council wants to have a balanced expansion in a way that all continents should be represented.

Until quite recently, IDEA has been concentrating about ten years on building and supplying knowledge. Now, they are moving towards the operational direction. Now, its main undertakings are: in Nepal, supporting the constitution building process; in Sudan, a project to support the political party strengthening - elections are planned next year or in 2009. "We organise dialogues between parties and capacity building activities for group of parties in terms of parliamentary conduct etc.", Mr Helgesen added. Religious parties are part of the exercise in Sudan. IDEA did some research: multiregional mapping of political party system, the internal functioning of parties etc. In the Andean region, in Latin America, IDEA is highly active in political and constitutional reform and in political party dialogue.

Further info:

* Vidar Helgesen: on his cv

* On IDEA