Free, fair, and credible elections are realised through the collaborative efforts of various electoral stakeholders.
It is against this background that the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria is hosting a two-day workshop in Windhoek on stakeholder intervention to support election management bodies and observers.
Participants come from various countries in Southern Africa and will discuss the broader AU framework on freedom of expression and access to information and other relevant instruments.
About 20 African countries have and will hold elections this year, and with democratic elections being under threat, there is a need for capacitating election bodies.
"Number one is scale, the ATI elections on the African continent number two, that we mainstream in the work that we do, as we election regulators, but also observe admissions themselves as basically part of the auditing criteria that will be used to determine the quality of elections as they are managed, and they are good," said Jeggan Hrey-Johnson, Representative of Open Society Foundation.
The workshop further aims to publicise the principles and guidelines for using digital and social media in elections in Africa and encourage their implementation in election management and observation.
"It was noted that internet and social media shutdowns violate your rights to freedom of expression and access to information contrary to Article Nine of this article, that citizens should not be penalised to shutdowns when we demonstrate all the economic and geopolitical revolts or indeed during contested electoral campaigns of polling, as has happened most recently, in countries at that time," said Ourveena Topsy-Sonoo, Special Rapporteur for the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights.
Dr. Emmerentia Leonard, a commissioner at the Electoral Commission of Namibia, explains that participants are expected to have increased knowledge by the end of the workshop.
"We also look forward to collectively identifying the main challenges, opportunities, and prospects of institutionalising these aspects to try and fulfil our obligations as under the African Union freedom with his own expression and access to at this point."
The workshop is held under the theme "Supporting election management bodies and election observer missions to fulfil their obligations under the AU framework of freedom of expression and access to information."