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Supervising Democracy: Venezuela, Guatemala, and the State of Electoral Observation in the Americas
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Overview
Electoral observation has a long history in Latin America, including during the recent electoral super cycle. This year alone, five countries are electing new leaders, with electoral observation missions contributing to the conditions for a free and fair contest, monitoring for fraud, promoting a peaceful political transition, and offering advice to improve election management.
Amid democratic decline throughout the Americas, the role of election observers is increasingly important. Unfounded allegations of fraud are routine nowadays, undermining the legitimacy of new leaders and at times leading supporters of a losing candidate to riot. In Guatemala in 2023, for example, bad-faith challenges to the president-elect’s victory, supported by the attorney general, nearly overturned the election. Today, Bernardo Arévalo is president in large part thanks to election observers from the European Union and Organization of American States who validated the result. By contrast, Venezuela permitted limited international observation of its July 28 election, leaving the opposition largely on its own to demonstrate blatant electoral fraud. The country’s authoritarian ruler is still clinging to power.
Please join the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program on Thursday, September 26, 2024, from 2:00 pm to 3:30pm, to discuss the importance of electoral observation in the Americas and the challenges to assuring consistent election monitoring, including inadequate and inconsistent international funding. This is the second event in a new Latin America Program initiative, Restoring Confidence in Elections in Latin America.
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Latin America Program
The Wilson Center’s prestigious Latin America Program provides non-partisan expertise to a broad community of decision makers in the United States and Latin America on critical policy issues facing the Hemisphere. The Program provides insightful and actionable research for policymakers, private sector leaders, journalists, and public intellectuals in the United States and Latin America. To bridge the gap between scholarship and policy action, it fosters new inquiry, sponsors high-level public and private meetings among multiple stakeholders, and explores policy options to improve outcomes for citizens throughout the Americas. Drawing on the Wilson Center’s strength as the nation’s key non-partisan policy forum, the Program serves as a trusted source of analysis and a vital point of contact between the worlds of scholarship and action. Read more
