Developing, nurturing and maintaining an electoral system that provides
for the free and fair expression of the people’s will through genuine and
periodic elections, in particular by:
(i) Guaranteeing that everyone can exercise his or her right to take
part in the government of his or her country, directly or through freely
chosen representatives;
Participation, representation, and equality
International law identifies the will of the people as the sole basis for the
authority of government; that will is to be determined by way of the electoral
process, in which every adult citizen has the right, on equal terms, to vote, to
elect, and to stand as a candidate.
If everyone’s rights in these matters are to be effective, then a
substantial catalogue of negative and positive obligations must be engaged.361
But between the right of the individual and the reality of effective participation,
any number of obstacles may intervene, such as de-registering or failing to
register voters, obstructing access to polling booths, either physically or by
locating them in remote places, and interference with election campaigning
and the communication of political platforms. Other obstacles may not be
intentional or deliberate as such, but the tolerated remnants of practices which
failed to accommodate particular groups or categories of electors in the past,
and which apathy, indifference or self-interest today leaves uncorrected. The
review of UN and regional practice above has shown how women and ethnic
minorities may be affected by such practices, as well as refugees and internally
displaced persons, for whom no one has thought to make provision. It has also
revealed another worrying and growing group of ‘non-participants’, identified
by their disenchantment by or alienation from a system of government which
does not, in reality or in their perception, come close to representing their