57th Meeting of the Council for Democratic Elections

Venice, Thursday, 8 December 2016, 10 am

The misuse of administrative resources during electoral processes: the role of local and regional elected representatives and public officials – Congress Resolution 402

Presentation by Stewart Dickson (United-Kingdom, ILDG), Congress Rapporteur

Dear colleagues,

as Jos just reminded us, earlier this year, the Venice Commission adopted the general Joint Guidelines, elaborated together with OSCE/ODIHR, for Preventing and Responding to the Misuse of Administrative Resources during Electoral Processes. In view of complementing these guidelines from the local and regional perspective, the Congress adopted, at its 31st Session in October, a Resolution that I have the pleasure to present to you today.

Let me first say that this work is part of a more general effort by the Congress to engage in awareness raising on standards for ethical conduct of politicians and transparency at the local and regional level. The Congress’ Strategy on preventing corruption and promoting public ethics incorporates recurring issues identified through election observation and, in particular, the misuse of administrative resources during electoral processes. This appears to be one of the most pressing problems.

Despite the fact that local and regional elections share many similarities with national elections, there is a need for a specific local and regional perspective on the misuse of administrative resources. This conviction is rooted in the specific role that local representatives - and also public officials – have during electoral processes and their responsibility with regard to the prevention of abuse of state resources.  As Jos stressed, there is an intrinsic link, at the grassroots’ level, between incumbents, candidates, public officials and the voters. This justifies – I would even say it demands – to address this problem at the grassroots.

Consequently, our  Resolution 402 points to concrete actions which could be undertaken by local and regional elected representatives and national self-government associations to limit the misuse of administrative resources during electoral processes, for example:

-       awareness-raising activities for elected representatives at local and regional level, to be developed by national associations of local self-government;

-       initiatives by local and regional authorities in order to promote voluntary declarations of neutrality signed by civil servants and public officials during election campaigns; 

-       the involvement of local opinion leaders to combat misuse of state resources through public declarations and also by leading by example.

More specifically, the Resolution suggests a Checklist for compliance with international standards and best practices preventing misuse of administrative resources during elections. – And this is what we are going to do next, since it is crucial to identify best practices and soft-law instruments to provide concrete guidance for politicians and public officials.

We took good note of the proposal by the Venice Commission to work jointly on this Checklist and since I am available to continue my work as Congress’ Rapporteur, I look forward to this co-operation which will lead us to a more practical document.

Thank you for your attention.