Forum News
Hungry for the legitimacy that the appearance of democratic elections can provide, authoritarian regimes are increasingly employing “zombie election monitors” to remain in power. Dressed up to look like established election monitoring organizations, “zombie monitors” are organizations who are willing to ignore internationally accepted norms about what constitutes free and fair democratic elections in order to create confusion about the authenticity of an election among domestic and international audiences.
A new Buzzfeed from the International Forum for Democratic Studies illustrates nine ways that undemocratic regimes call on and deploy zombie monitors to endorse staged elections and drown out the voices of credible election monitors. ::VISIT
