Reflections on Election Fraud and its Persistence in Modern Democracy

Rt. Hon Bruce George, Former President of the OSCE Parliament Assembly and Vice President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly

and

Simon Kimber MSc

Executive Summary

I have been obsessively interested in electoral corruption since I first began my studies at the University of Wales and took a course covering the history of corruption. After over thirty years in electoral politics my interest in the subject persists to this day. My first attempt to win an election was in a small Welsh valley town called Aberdare. My attempt to win the parliamentary seat failed when I was not selected as the candidate for the Labour Party as the result of a deal between some of the local trade unions. Two of the unions had made an agreement over which candidate to support and this swung the decision against me. I was extremely angry and saw it as a corrupt practise, but in reality this was just how trade unions worked within the Labour Party at the time. As a firm believer in the mantra if you can’t beat them, join them, I subsequently became a trade union member and have remained so to this day! After that initial failed attempt to win a seat, I was eventually chosen to contest the constituency of Walsall South on behalf of the Labour Party – a seat everyone at the time believed was unwinnable. So it was with some surprise that in 1974 I won the seat and entered Parliament for the first time. I would later be re-elected nine times before eventually choosing to retire in 2010. Over the course of my 35 plus years in parliament, democracy and elections became one of the subjects I focused on both at home and abroad. As a Member of Parliament I was also chosen to sit on the UK delegations to the NATO and OSCE Parliamentary Assemblies and through my membership of both organisations spent much time travelling the world as an election observer. As a result of this I have witnessed first hand a significant amount of election fraud.

In this paper I offer a detailed examination of election fraud, both looking at the history of the problem and it’s continuing influence in the world today. I hope by offering my insights and experience gained over the last forty years I can provide a useful perspective on the matter at hand. As will become clear in the pages that follow election fraud is not an issue for the history books. Whilst the perception may be that this is no longer a problem for Western democracies I hope to show that this is an issue that all democracies should be concerned with, both old and new. To demonstrate this I will offer a number of case studies including the UK and the USA to show that even in the oldest of democracies we must still be vigilant.

Epilogue by L. Burke Files DDP CACM, President of The AACI (page 23).

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For reprint and  more information you may contact us at research@theaaci.com

Qatar University: A Vision to Fight Corruption

Last May, The AACI conducted an anti-corruption case contest at Qatar University, Doha - Qatar.  This is the first of its kind in the Middle East and Africa. The AACI’s Student Association engagement was exemplary. We will be offering the anti-corruption case contest in each semester at Qatar University. Moreover, we will expand its scope and the pool of participants.

The AACI issued a press release in this regard and published an overview of The AACI engagement in empowering academia to play a proactive role in fighting corruption. Read more.  

A Greek tragedy and an EU crime

Cayman Financial Review
By: L. Burke Files & Mike J. MASOUD 
April 22, 2015

Let’s start with being provocative: The utterly corrupt path leading to the Greek debt default theater is filled with faux EU pressures, chicanery and bribes, overt and implied, by all 11 sides. 

So what are the corrupt paving stones that make up the path to debt perdition?

1981 

It all started with Greece’s membership in the European Community. The EU membership entitled Greece to European Regional Integration funds, the Delors Package I. It also brought new sources to borrow from abroad. In 1981 Greek public debt was €8.5 billion (22.8 percent of Greece’s GDP), by 1991 it was €48 billion (71 percent of GDP). This is a full 10 years before Greece was made a full member of the EU. Did Greece have the institutional capacity to absorb these funds without corruption? Did anyone think to ask?

January 2001 

Greece became the 12th member of the eurozone. While many fretted about such an economically weak country joining the euro, Wim Duisenberg, then president of the European Central Bank, assured all that Greece, with the EU’s help, would continue with improvements to its economy that would make euro membership appropriate. 

At the time, Greece touted its fiscal reforms to cut the government budget deficit, privatizations and labor market reforms. Today those are the same areas where the troika has demanded action and the Greek government resisted. 

2004 

Greece admits it may have fudged its bona fides a bit to gain access to the EU club. It seems that since 1999 Greece has not met the deficit target of 3 percent of GDP that applies to all prospective and current members. 

As commentators have pointed out, this was in part a consequence of a toothless Eurostat, the EU agency that monitors economic statistics, which was wholly reliant on the data provided by the national governments. 

As Matina Stevis pointed out in The Guardian in 2011, “In a time when the EU issues regulations on the permissible size and shape of fruit, there are no excuses for not having in place a strict framework for the generation of statistical information.”

2004 to 2009 

Greece is a big spender. Athens hosted the Olympics at extravagant expense. The estimated cost of the Olympic Games is a stunning $14 - 15 billion. No game in the history of the Olympics has lost more than a tenth of that. Associated Press reported in 2012 that eight years after the Olympic Games many of the facilities were left vacant and rotting. 

Many Greeks, even the head of the International Olympic Committee, say hosting the 2004 Olympics contributed to the country’s debt crisis. The Olympic Games was such a bank buster that it was the tipping point starting Greece’s downward slide into debt perdition. 

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The President of The American Anti-Corruption Institute (AACI) lecturing at Texas A&M law school, Fort Worth, Texas in January 2015

The President of The American Anti-Corruption Institute (AACI) lecturing at Texas A&M law school, Fort Worth, Texas in January 2015