A UN Commission on Elections?

What is happening in Iran today after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who purportedly defeated his rival Mir Hossein Mousavi is unprecedented in Iran’s turbulent history. How this election result will eventually be resolved remains to be seen. To be sure, no one ever expected the level of boldness that the opposition in Iran has shown to the world.

But more than what’s happening in Iran, this after-election results should open up the world to the realities of today’s imperfect albeit democratic system, where the government in power often wins the election simply because it has a huge advantage in the use of resources and above all, its police and military resources which are more often than not, used to subvert the sovereign will of the people, which is very undemocratic!

We Filipinos pride ourselves as Asia’s First Democracy, yet we have to learn our own bitter lessons we have experienced through the years. We can go as far back to the time of that great Filipino Don Sergio Osmeña Sr. who, together with President Manuel L. Quezon headed several missions to the United States to bid for Philippine independence, where they gained Commonwealth status for the Philippines in 1935. He was twice elected as vice-president of the Commonwealth and became president after the death of President Quezon.

But right after the end of World War II, Don Sergio Osmeña Sr. (he was the founder of the Nacionalista Party) lost in the 1946 elections to President Manuel Roxas in the first elections under an independent Philippines. Reading his biography by Vicente Albano Pacis, we learned that Don Sergio Osmeña was truly a humble man and dared not to use the vast powers of the Presidency to campaign for his own term. Losing this huge political advantage, it allowed President Manuel Roxas to win in that election.

Alas, Don Sergio Osmeña mistakenly thought that the Filipino people would be grateful enough to vote him to the Presidency… which is why I consider him one of the greatest Filipinos who ever lived because he never used or misused the vast powers of the Office of the President.

When President Ferdinand E. Marcos run for president, again and again, especially during Martial Law, no one in the opposition dared run against him knowing how futile it was to spend money uselessly. So Marcos toasted to his “adherence to Democratic principles” which was far from the truth. Then came the 1986 elections when Marcos faced a real challenge with Tita Cory Aquino where he shamelessly cheated. Until today, no one really knows the results of that election because EDSA changed our political leadership!

Worldwide, we know that elections are held in so many countries, where more often than not, the results (like in Iran) are so questionable. When elections fail, it usually ends up with protests and this results in a violent dispersal of protesters and the curtailment of human rights. This has been repeated all over and in Africa, it resulted into many failed states.

When the fighting begins, the United Nations (UN) with its feeding program starts feeding those political refugees at great cost to the UN and its members. I guess this is because the UN does not interfere with domestic politics. The UN only comes in when the violence starts and results in mass killings that lead to mass evacuation of a great number of people.

Although I have little respect for the United Nations (UN) because it has shown to be inutile in solving the world’s problems, however, since there’s no other body like the UN, perhaps they should come up with a pro-active scheme like the creation of the UN Commission on Elections (UNCE) to place nations that cannot manage its own elections under its control and validate the results of the elections so the true winners would emerge.

The UNCE can run elections in countries that have a bad election record and it will be the UNCE that would control the elections of that particular country… until they learn to run the elections themselves without any cheating. Under the UNCE, no one from the country holding elections would be a part or member of the election committee. Most of Africa and Asia, Iran and yes even the Philippines can very well take advantage of this if it ever materializes. It would cost the government nothing to call for elections!

One huge advantage to the UN is that election counting machinery which costs a fortune can be used and reused by the UN in countries that can never hope to afford these very important devices that ensure a free and honest election. But best of all, when elections are run by people who do not live or belong here, it becomes more credible as they really have no motive to take sides with anyone. After the elections are over, the victors are proclaimed by the UN that recognizes their efforts and thus, it would be more acceptable to the people who even lost their election bids. Let’s hope that the UN listens!

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