Jimmy Carter sought to expand democracy worldwide long after he left the White House
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Amid everything else on his desk – the Iran hostage crisis, domestic economic turmoil, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and a grueling 1980 re-election battle – President Jimmy Carter has made the independence of a country in southern Africa a top item on the agenda.
Carter hosted the then leader of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe at the White House shortly after his country gained independence, and later described Zimbabwe’s adoption of democracy as “our greatest success.”
Thirty years later, Carter, long out of office, found the door closed him and other dignitaries wanted to visit Zimbabwe on a humanitarian mission to observe reported human rights violations following a violent disputed election in 2008. He had become a critic of Mugabe’s regime and was denied a visa.
Carter didn’t give up. From neighboring South Africa, he relied on envoys from Zimbabwe for testimony about violence and allegations of election fraud. This effort reflected the former president’s long commitment to advancing democracy worldwide.
More than anything else, this “confirmed Carter’s legacy” as an advocate for free and fair elections across Africa, said Eldred Masunungure, a former political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.
“Carter hasn’t changed. Zimbabwe did that. Mugabe allowed himself to be distracted from the democratic ideals that Carter held so dear,” he said. “The incident demonstrates Carter’s consistency and fortitude.”
Zimbabwe’s evolution towards autocracy turned out to be the kind of scenario that… Carter Center has long tried to prevent this by deploying observers and developing voting standards in countries struggling to form democracies.
The center, founded in 1982, two years after Carter lost his bid for a second term, has been Carter’s signature effort to promote fair elections as a vehicle for peace. It has sent observers to monitor some 125 elections in 40 countries and three tribal nations, and is credited with helping expand democracy around the world.
Carter’s “moral authority, the trust people placed in him and the credibility of someone who had both won and lost an election” contributed to these successes, David Carroll, head of the center’s democracy program, told The Associated Press.
Carter, who died Sunday at the age of 100, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for the center’s work supporting elections, promoting human rights and helping developing countries cultivate economic, social and public health institutions.
The election work began in Panama, where Carter became concerned about the 1989 election after reports that armed militiamen in plain clothes had seized voting records overnight.
The Carter Center had just decided to expand its mission of conflict resolution and human rights to include voting monitoring, concluding that democratic elections were essential for resolving political disputes.
“In my clumsy Spanish, I stood on a table and denounced the election as fraudulent,” Carter recalled in a 2015 video marking the center’s 100th election observation mission. “Later there was another election, which was fair and just, and that was the birth of real democracy in Panama.”
The center also helped rescue one peace process in Nepalthen oversaw the country’s twice-delayed 2008 elections to elect a parliament that would be tasked with writing a constitution. Carter made several trips to the South Asian country, where he held marathon negotiations with former rebels and top politicians to keep the peace process on track.
“There was an impasse in the country. The political parties were not together and there was no way out on how the process would proceed,” said Bhojraj Pokharel, Nepal’s chief election commissioner in 2008, who later worked with Carter in Congo and Myanmar.
On Election Day in Nepal, Carter traveled to dozens of polling stations to talk to voters. The elections took place peacefully, despite earlier fears of violence.
“His presence itself was a message to the Nepalese people and voters about the integrity of the elections,” Pokharel said.
The Carter Center often works in countries with little or no experience with representative government and where trust has virtually evaporated due to violence.
After Bolivia held elections in 2019 that the Organization of American States said were marred by fraud, the country’s electoral court invited the Carter Center to observe elections the following year. The center sent a team to Bolivia and later praised the country before elections called it impartial and transparent.
The Carter Center’s evaluation “was important not only for the way the international community viewed us, but also for the way Bolivian society evaluated the electoral process,” said Salvador Romero, the tribunal’s president at the time.
Similar results have been difficult to achieve recently in Africa, where many countries that have emerged from decades of colonialism have seen powerful takeovers and contentious elections.
In Nigeria, Tunisia, Zambia and Ivory CoastCarter Center observers noted violence, killings, vote buying, an uneven playing field for political parties and candidates, and a general lack of confidence in elections.
In Tunisia, frustration has replaced the wave of hope sparked by the 2010 Arab Spring uprising. A new parliament was convened in March 2023, two years after President Kais Saied suspended parliament and began legislating by decree to craft. The 11% turnout for the legislative elections marked “a low point” for the country’s democracy, the Carter Center said, and some election observer groups did as well. accreditation denied for the October 2024 presidential contest.
At times, Carter personally intervened to keep African peace processes on track by trying to convince warlords and rebels to support elections, rather than the use of force, in their quest for power.
In recent years, the Carter Center’s elections have worked turned towards the US.
The teams were deployed to Oklahoma in 2017 at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, following a troubled election. In 2013, ballots had been moved from office to office and stored without proper security, eroding confidence in the integrity of the vote. A recount then overturned the results, tribal governor Reggie Wassana said.
The Carter Center’s presence in the subsequent elections “made a huge difference, and restored some trust among tribal members,” Wassana said.
According to Carroll, the center tried to stay away from broader political issues in the United States until 2020. But the center noticed that threats to American democracy were increasing, prompting the decision to expand programs within the U.S.
“If we saw the same conditions in another country as we see in the US – the lack of trust in electoral institutions, polarization and growing concerns about political violence – that is exactly the kind of country we would prioritize to see if we can play . play a constructive role,” said Carroll.
Belief in American elections, especially among American elections a large portion of Republican voterseroded after the 2020 elections under the former president Donald Trump’s False Claims that the Democrats had manipulated the vote. There was no evidence of it widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in those elections.
In the 2024 presidential election, which Trump won, the center made limited observations in New Mexico, Montana and the United States Fulton County, Georgia. In many US states, election observers are limited to representatives of political parties, with no provision for nonpartisan, independent groups. The center is trying to change that.
Carter’s leadership on democracy remains a big star for the center, Carroll said.
“You can ensure that strong systems are in place, but they must be constantly monitored. You can never rest on your record on democracy and elections. You always have to be vigilant and keep an eye on the process,” he said.
___ Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Paola Flores in La Paz, Bolivia; Binaj Gurubacharya in Kathmandu, Nepal; Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City; and Daniel Politi in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.