Political Parties

Mauritanian Political Parties Put Aside Differences to Strengthen Organizing Skills

Over the last several decades, Mauritania, a large desert nation on Africa’s west coast, has experienced frequent coups d’état and political deadlock.

Mauritania’s current president, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, ousted the country’s first democratically elected president in 2008 and has won subsequent presidential elections since 2009. The 2013 parliamentary elections and the 2014 presidential election did little to heal the country’s long-simmering political tensions, as parties failed to agree on conditions necessary for the successful conduct of elections.

Since 2006, NDI’s Rinor Beka, senior program manager, of Kosovo has been at the center of his country’s democratic transition.

Together with his NDI colleagues, Beka has built bridges between different players in Kosovo’s political arena, including members of parliament, political parties and citizen groups, to ensure that their priorities “focus on people” and continue to lay the foundations of democracy.

Historically, women in Pakistan have been involved in election campaigns, but very few have taken part in their party’s policy making process. That is changing through a Political Party Development Program (PPDP), that over the last four years has included 16,609 grassroots party members, of which 44 percent have been women.

Despite the possibility of spillover violence from Syria, a vacancy in the presidency and postponed parliamentary elections, young Lebanese party activists are eager to find ways to enter politics.

Forty of them, representing five political parties, gathered outside Beirut last month for a campaign school for future candidates and campaign teams to learn how to build outreach strategies and create messages that address voter interests.

Grassroots members of political parties in Pakistan have historically been disconnected from party leaders who are typically the ones who decide the parties’ policy positions. In fact, rank and file members of most parties have often not met their party leaders, let alone had a chance to discuss policy issues with them.

“The policy development process has always been top down,” said Tahir Bizanjo, a senior leader of the National Party. “What we are learning now is how to make it the other way around.”

A new blog, written by NDI staff, tells the inspiring stories of citizens and organizations doing the challenging work of building democracy around the world.

Organizing and Producing Candidate Debates: An International Guide

This guide is intended to serve as a resource for organizers around the globe seeking to hold candidate debates for elected offices. It is based on the premise that there is no one best way to carry out these forums. Civic activists in each country should hold debates that reflect their culture and political system.

A Trainer's Guide: How to Design and Deliver Training with Impact

The lead trainers for the MENA Regional Campaign Schools, Shannon O’Connell and Abdul Salam Medeni, have come together to co-author this manual – a step-by-step guide to designing, preparing, conducting and evaluating a successful training program. A Trainer’s Guide: How to Design and Deliver Training with Impact focuses solely on the basic principles that a trainer should follow in order to gain the best possible outcomes from a training he or she delivers.

News from NDI: Historic Elections in Ukraine and Tunisia

NDI Delegations Report on Tunisia and Ukraine Elections

November 2014

Young future Tunisian voters participate in election day

NDI fielded two high-level international delegations to the historic elections in Ukraine and Tunisia. The parliamentary elections, both on Oct. 26, came at a critical time for both countries. You can read the findings from NDI's election observation missions below.

Ukraine

Despite internal conflict and foreign intervention, Ukraine conducted credible parliamentary elections that advanced the nation’s aspirations for democracy, independence and sovereignty, NDI's report said. While the elections were largely peaceful and orderly, the process was not without problems, but none of them appeared to undermine the credibility of the polls. Many Ukrainians were disenfranchised due to territory controlled by Russian-backed separatists. Other shortcomings included sporadic violence, intimidation and attempts to disrupt voting, some instances of voter bribery and smear campaigns in the media, insufficient promotion of women and inadequate campaign finance regulations. Read More »

Tunisia

Parliamentary elections carried out in Tunisia constituted a major step forward in the country’s democratic transition, NDI's observation delegation said. While the country's first democratic legislative elections had isolated irregularities and incidents, none appeared significant enough to affect the outcome in the districts where they occurred. “We have observed a historic moment for Tunisia, in which a new election administration successfully oversaw a process that included active participation from political parties, civil society, voters and the media,” said NDI President Kenneth Wollack. Read more »

African Youth Steer AU Agenda for High Level Dialogue

African Union (AU) leaders gathered in Senegal at a high level dialogue last week to discuss promoting a culture of peace across the continent. African youth helped set the agenda through regional consultations, surveys and a conference that brought young leaders from across Africa to Nairobi, Kenya, in September. By supporting these initiatives, NDI is supporting the efforts of the AU to develop a youth engagement strategy. Read more »

Task Force to Spearhead Community Response to Ebola in Liberia

In response to the worst outbreak of the Ebola virus in history, a group of civil society organizations in Liberia has established a task force to help coordinate efforts to prevent the spread of the disease. Its goal is to encourage quicker action at the community level, where responses have been slow. These organizations have worked closely with NDI in the past and will be carrying out their Ebola response efforts through NDI sub-grants funded by the Embassy of Sweden in Liberia. Read more »

New Tools Provide Guidance on Political Party Assistance Programming

NDI launched a toolkit to help organizations that work with political parties analyze party behavior, design more strategic interventions and improve the management of party assistance programs. Read more »

Tipping Point: Examining Democracy in Romania

Romania has come a long way in its democratic and economic development since the demise of the communist regime 25 years ago, but some essential transition issues are still being closed. An assessment of Romania's progress took place in Bucharest in September, which centered on a report by Corina Rebegea, an analyst for the Center for European Policy Analysis. NDI’s director for Central and Eastern Europe, Robert Benjamin, provides his assessment of the report. Read More »

Bosnian Civic Coalition Activates Citizen Oversight of General Elections

As Bosnia and Herzegovina prepared to go to the polls on Oct. 12, seven leading civil society organizations from across the country coalesced under the banner of “Pod Lupom – Koalicija za slobodne i postene izbore” (Under the Magnifying Glass – Coalition for Free and Fair Elections) – to mobilize broad-based citizen oversight of the election process. In fewer than five months, Pod Lupom undertook the most comprehensive and technically proficient election observation ever conducted in the country. Read more »

Music Icon 2face Idibia Leads Youth Campaign for Peaceful Nigerian Elections

Inspired by the belief that Nigeria’s greatest resource is its youth, a foundation sponsored by the musician 2face Idibia and a prominent civic organization, the Youngstars Development Initiative, have unveiled a nationwide youth get-out-the-vote campaign to encourage a peaceful process surrounding the country’s general elections next February. Read more »

Latin American Exchange on Violence Prevention Takes Local Ideas to International Forum

Municipal and federal government officials from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico traveled to Santa Tecla, El Salvador, in September to talk about some of their successes in reducing violence in their communities, where the rates of murder, kidnapping and extortion are some of the highest in the world. Read more »

Global Campaign to Open Legislatures Draws Broad Support

Civic activists and government reformers in more than 30 countries rallied behind open legislatures to promote values of transparency, inclusion and participation in the lawmaking process during the first-ever Global Legislative Openness Week (GLOW) Sept. 15 to 25. Read more »

NDI is on Twitter!

Follow @NDI and @kwollack to get up-to-date news about the Institute's work around the world.

The National Democratic Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization working to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide through citizen participation, openness and accountability in government.

If you are having trouble reading this email, read it online.

Subscribe to our email list

Read more about News from NDI: Historic Elections in Ukraine and Tunisia

October 10, 2014

New Tools Provide Guidance on Political Party Assistance Programming

Join the discussion this Friday, Nov.7 at noon for our upcoming event "Advances and Challenges in Party Assistance," featuring former Governor of Vermont Howard Dean.