Displaced and disenfranchised: internally displaced persons and elections in the osce region

Abstract

In Europe and Central Asia today there are some three million people who have been forcibly uprooted from their homes and communities as a result of ethnic conflict and tensions, but who, unlike refugees, remain within their own countries. Safeguarding the security and welfare of these internally displaced persons (IDPs) is the responsibility first and foremost of their own government. IDPs are entitled to the same set of rights as non-displaced nationals, and for all citizens this includes the right to political participation. Around the world, however, internally displaced persons face a number of obstacles to exercising their right to vote. The disenfranchisement of the internally displaced not only infringes their rights, it exacerbates the social, political and economic marginalization that they typically experience. Most significantly, it deprives them of the ability to exercise democratic levers of influence over the decisions affecting their lives and thereby to press national and local authorities to effectively address their plight. This article examines the extent to which IDPs in the region covered by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which extends across Europe, Central Asia and North America, are able to exercise their right to vote. Following a brief overview of the problem of internal displacement in the OSCE region, it lays out the normative framework guaranteeing for IDPs the right to vote. On the basis of an extensive study of elections in the OSCE, various obstacles that IDPs face in exercising their right to vote are then identified, explained, and illustrated by reference to particular country examples. Institutional approaches of the OSCE, which plays a leading role in election observation, to the issue of IDP voting rights are also reviewed. In conclusion, a set of recommendations is put forth for overcoming these obstacles and ensuring that the principle of universal suffrage extends to the internally displaced.

Notes

1. Unless otherwise stated, the findings presented in this article are drawn from this larger study, comprised of 13 case studies assessing IDP voting rights in each of the OSCE countries with internally displaced populations.

2. In 2003 Greek Cypriot authorities pledged to endorse legislation allowing Turkish Cypriots living in the south to participate in local elections. However, it is unclear whether this pledge was fulfilled. It is nonetheless significant that the Greek Cypriot parliament passed a law on 29 January 2004 giving all Turkish Cypriots, regardless of whether they lived in the north or the south, the right to vote in European parliamentary elections as long as they formally registered with the recognized Cypriot authorities.

3. For a compilation of international and regional standards, applicable in situations of internal displacement, that codify the right to vote, see Kälin (2000, p. 57). See also United Nations (1995, paras 350–358).

4. The Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were developed by the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons, Francis M. Deng, at the request of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations General Assembly. They were presented to the Commission on Human Rights in 1998 and have since gained broad international standing and recognition as a tool and standard for addressing situations of internal displacement.

5. In addition to the roughly 247 000 internally displaced persons from Abkhazia, another 13 000 remain displaced as a result of the secessionist conflict in the region of South Ossetia during 1991 and 1992, which also has yet to be resolved with a lasting political settlement. The Meskhetian Turks and other groups, including ethnic Germans, who were deported en masse from Georgia during the Stalin era to other parts of the USSR that have since become independent states, are outside their country of origin and therefore do not fall within the IDP definition or the scope of this article. To be sure, the situation of these deported peoples, many of whom are now living as stateless persons in Ukraine, Azerbaijan and elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Independent States nonetheless needs to be addressed.

6. An email correspondence of the authors with the Washington Kurdish Institute, 27 October 2004.