"The rise of uncontrolled political finance threatens to hollow out democracy everywhere and rob democracy of its unique strengths".
This is a serious warning to us in the USA about what is happening here. Who wrote the report? Why?
Urgent national and international action is needed to protect and promote the integrity of elections, says a new report from the high-level Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security.
The report, Deepening Democracy: a Strategy for Improving the Integrity of Elections Worldwide, finds that all but 11 countries have held national elections already this century. But some were deeply flawed, providing nothing but a "false veneer of legitimacy" to autocratic governments.
The Commission emphasises that elections conducted with integrity not only promote democratic values and human rights, but also help to improve governance, fight corruption, empower minority groups and deliver services to the poor.
If not conducted fairly, elections can undermine democracy, worsen divisions, trigger conflicts and fail to deliver improvements in the lives of people.
The Commission of former world leaders, Nobel Prize winners and leading academics identifies five major threats to electoral integrity, including the growing issue of "uncontrolled, undisclosed, illegal and opaque political finance", which affects mature and developing democracies alike.
