Value openness of electoral management bodies – Frassoni

The President of the Management Board of European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES), Monica Frassoni, in this interview says the centre is committed to deepening the electoral process in Nigeria through its various non-partisan interventions, and reveals plans to engage the media on fake news and its threat to democracy. She spoke with Daily Trust […]

The President of the Management Board of European Centre for Electoral Support (ECES), Monica Frassoni, in this interview says the centre is committed to deepening the electoral process in Nigeria through its various non-partisan interventions, and reveals plans to engage the media on fake news and its threat to democracy. She spoke with Daily Trust Saturday during a post-election review meeting organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

How does this review help your cause as an electoral assistance provider?

I found this exercise extremely enlightening and very interesting. I never saw it before, I never experienced this kind of exercise before and I am very glad that ICES was able to support this. I also thought that the attitude of the journalists was very open. They didn’t have problems of saying what they really thought. I also believe that this is interesting for us as assistance providers because we are here to help and to have the feedback of one of our important stakeholders like the media is also very helpful, that is why we are going to organize a workshop on issues of fake news and training and recent issue of setting up of the media monitoring unit. These are all things that we believe are constituent part of our work as electoral assistants.

What drives your interest in providing support for electoral management bodies like INEC?

Our work will be successful if election, the process is successful. We as an electoral assistance providers do not have our own agenda. We are not political actors. We are depending on beneficiaries of course and our founders which are the European Union States. I think this is also a very important element to be understood because the issue of having our own agenda is not something that is for us a point, we don’t have one. Our goal is the same as that of INEC. I believe that the question of access to votes, the question of having a swift procedure, the question of having a good participation to vote, the factor of having the capacity of voters, these are all questions that belong to the process on which we have all sorts of activities. We are training different actors and different stakeholders, that is why we are talking about media. In reality, we try to do what INEC asks us to do but with certain priority – women participation, youth participation, clarity of the process which is also in the agenda of the European Union.

How do you find your working relationship with INEC?

I am very impressed with the confidence and the openness, the openness of an electoral body is a real treasure that you as Nigerians have to value very much.

You talked about fake news, what in your view is the effect of fake news especially on issues bothering on election?

Fake news is strong when public opinion is not able to understand the difference between fake news and real news and I think that is the issue. We see that in countries in Europe. The fact that basically people are led to believe false things and the fact that you believe false things depends on who said the wrong thing. So basically it is a question of trust, if you trust the sources of fake news, then we are in trouble. If you trust somebody like a political leader but this person is not really saying true things, then that is the problem of fake news. That is why there are limits to what we but also INEC can do in terms of stopping fake news but it is very important, I believe, that the main weapon against fake news is the media themselves. It is not something that INEC or political parties…of course we can help in training, etc, to understand how to do it but it is only through the media that you can deal with people who tell lies. If you are relying on them, giving them a lot of strength, then it is not good.

I am Italian, and in Italy there is in this moment a very big discussion exactly about the fact that very prominent politicians are saying things that are not true and what the media having to do.

How much have you committed to your assistance and programmes in Nigeria in recent years?

I think we are answering calls by the European Union. So the European Union together with the national government, INEC in this case, has a whole programme which has to do with elections. And therefore there is a memorandum of understanding between European Union and Nigeria which says, ‘okay, we want to do some kind of assistance’ and that is when we are called to do this. But everything is done in agreement with INEC and everything is done in agreement with the European Union.

Going by your experiences on elections in Nigeria and other African countries, how will you describe the process? Is it really evolving?

It will be very pretentious on my side to say that there we are trying and above all coming from an old continent where the attacks on democracy are stronger everyday. So we have to be humbled but the evolution of how the political system works, I think there is some very good news. I must say that over a year or a year and half that I have come here, I am every time struck by the people I meet and the sophistication. We co-organized a big event on women and I was really impressed by the strength and the force. These are political and demographic forces. You know here I find a lot of very interesting points. Talking about Africa in general, I am not sure that I could make any kind of judgement but I see that the work we can do here can be helpful because there is a very good ground and I think the same thing can be said of other African countries.