ANFREL Background

The Asian Network for Free Elections (ANFREL) was established in 1997, as Asia’s first regional network of civil society organizations. It strives to promote and support democratization at national and regional levels in Asia. Since it was founded, it has served towards strengthening the democratization of countries such as Sri Lanka, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, East Timor and Indonesia.

ANFREL is supported by a number of national organizations from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

From 1997 onwards until today, ANFREL, has also been active in contributing its efforts to capacity building of member and non-member organizations on issues related to election observation, voter/civic education, electoral reform and public awareness for good democratic governance.

Research activities on electoral reform, democracy and good governance have been conducted jointly with civil society organizations in several countries.

ANFREL has been active in organizing trainings and comparative study seminars of election laws in Asia. In November 1998 for instance, a seminar-workshop on the election laws in Indonesia was held, participated by election experts from selected Asian countries. The critique and the recommendations of the seminar-workshop were submitted to the Indonesia authorities for consideration in finalizing the election law.

Apart from direct election observation programs, in ANFREL’s entire election observation mission to date, training (directly or indirectly to local organizations) has always been part of the primary objective of its mission. ANFREL believes that capacity building is one of the most important elements in democratization efforts.
ANFREL hopes that these efforts will get continuous support from the international community for greater democratization efforts in Asia.

Electoral process is one of the basic needs for the citizens of a country to enjoy their freedom in order to exercise their political rights in choosing representatives to organize and manage the country’s democratic political system. Because the relations between politics, economics and social justice are very close and tight, election thus plays a major role in determining the future direction of a country.

ANFREL believes that the electoral system of a country must be co-ordinate and monitored carefully to assure the sovereignty of the processes, which shoulders its autonomous results.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 21) states that:
“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government. This will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held be secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”

The objectives ANFREL has set for the observation missions are:
1. To support the enhancement of integrity of electoral process as well as to minimize election irregularities and election-related human rights violations.

2. To provide accurate and impartial information and analysis on issues related to the General Elections in particular and prospects for democratic development in general.

3. To enhance and sustain the capacity of civil society organizations to ensure an environment conducive for the conduct of free elections as well as for the realization of people’s aspiration for democracy.

4. Strive to strengthen the civil societal activity among participating nations. (This can be achieved in training and promotions of democratization values among members of the observation mission.)

5. To support and strengthen local networks of elections observation bodies in organizing, information gathering and data exchanging activities during the mission which will enhance the results of the mission for both local and international participants of election observation missions.

6. To publish a report upon completion of the mission. The report aims to underline the outcome of the observation mission of the General Elections Observation team, together with recommendations for the electoral process. This report will in the end act as a mission report, which will be distributed to participating bodies and agencies.

The goal of the observation mission is to provide ordinary citizens, election officials, government officials, and the international community with an accurate and impartial picture of the unfolding political and electoral process in the observing country.