African Union Election Observer Mission
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Date
2015
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Department of Linguistics and Nigerian Languages, University of Ilorin, Ilorin
Abstract
The African Union is the union of fifty-four (54) African countries. The African Union is the legal successor of Organization of African Unity. AU was launched on 9 July, 2002 in South Africa to replace the OAU. It could be understood that, just like United Nations Organisation did to League of Nations, AU was launched to correct the failures of OAU. At the dawn of the new millennium, most of the African countries were democratizing. The task for African Union (formally O.A.U) was promotion of democracy and good governance. Since the transformation of OAU to AU, the latter has maintained its stance on democratic enhancement of African through different means including election observation. Monitoring of elections by international observers is perceived as capable of reducing if not preventing fraud, build confidence among voters and competing political actors, and ensuring that elections take place in a free fair and transparent atmosphere. It is important to understand that free and fair election is a sine qua non to democratic substance in Africa. Most African countries face problems of free and fair elections, good governance, democratization and peaceful handovers. It is against this background that this paper seeks to examine the activities of the African Union Election Observer Mission vis a vis democratic sustenance, good governance, free and fair election in Africa. It is believed that the monitoring of the elections by Election Monitoring Observers would help in reducing largely some of these bottlenecks in African countries particularly at the dawn of the new millennium
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Keywords
African Union, Election, Observer, Mission