In October 2023, Liberia held its first general election since UN peacekeeping forces left the country. The election is regarded today as a success. Thanks in part to the extensive election observation efforts that monitored the process.
It may seem like a universal truth that democracy in the world is in decline. That's also what the description looks like Varieties of Democracys report from March this year. Since 2009, a larger percentage of the world's population has lived in countries where autocratization is increasing, and a smaller percentage in countries where democratization is progressing.
Despite this decline, there are thousands of people around the world who continue to fight for democratic rights and fair elections. Some of them were in Liberia in 2023 to enable and monitor the general elections.
Liberia went through its second, violent civil war from 1999 until August 2003 then the Accra Peace Agreement was signed by the warring parties. After the end of the war, UN-led peacekeeping forces were deployed in the country and remained there until 2018, when they formally handed over responsibility for the country's security to the Liberian authorities.
The general elections for the presidency, house of representatives and the senate in 2023 thus became the first since the civil war in which the country's own authorities had full responsibility for security and the electoral process. Many different organizations were on site in various election observation missions to monitor the election.
Sophia Tuwesdotter works as an administrator in election observation at Folke Bernadotteakademin (FBA). She has worked a lot with election observation and says that FBA assigns Swedish election observers to international election observation efforts.
Often it is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) or the European Union that are responsible for the international election observation missions from Europe, but it is FBA that contributes with Swedish election observers by recruiting, training and contracting people for the missions.

- An election observer is someone who examines how a country lives up to its own commitments, based on national laws and international conventions, explains Sophia Tuwesdotter.
Election observers are invited to a country that is going to hold elections to get help developing its election implementation. Their job is to observe and then make recommendations on how to improve future elections.
- You never carry out an operation without being invited by the country, or if the conditions for the operation are not high enough, says Sophia Tuwesdotter.
Important with both international and local perspectives
The Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) also works with election observation. IN their report about the elections in Liberia in 2023, successes and challenges in the implementation of the elections are discussed. The report contains recommendations on improvement measures for various actors in the election.
Among other things, they recommend that the state media should have a more equitable distribution of airtime between the candidates, since the state media is the only one that spans all 15 counties of Liberia.
EISA's report is one of several from many different election observation missions, in addition to the European Union and EISA, the African Union was also present and carried out extensive election observation missions in Liberia.
David Carroll is director of the democracy program at The Carter Center in Atlanta, USA. Over the past 30 years, The Carter Center has been involved in many election observations around the world. He explains that they not only recruit international observers, but also use local people, because they have a better grasp of the country.

- Most of our assignments are as international election observers, but we have also worked to support something called citizen observers. Then it is citizens of the country who, with our support, act as observers, explains David Carroll.
Citizen observations have been carried out in, among other places, Liberia, where The Carter Center collaborated with the Liberia Election Observation Network (LEON), which also received support from the Swedish Embassy in Liberia.
Sweden participated and supported the election
Nikolina Stålhand, officer for democracy and human rights at the Swedish embassy in Liberia, talks about Sweden's support for the elections in Liberia in 2023. Before the elections, Sweden supported the elections in various ways several years before the actual election day.
Much of the support went via the UN Development Program to Liberia's Electoral Commission and to various civil society organizations. All election observations are important, she argues, but above all it is important to be there for a longer period of time and not just on election day.
- The advantage of a local organization is that they can be everywhere in the country and that they can be found in all constituencies. They also collaborated with other observer networks, says Nikolina Stålhand.

Nikolina Stålhand emphasizes the importance of using local civil society organizations such as LEON. By having election observers on site from many different organizations, the legitimacy of the election was strengthened and transparency and a fair election process ensured. Several of the organizations that were election observers, including LEON, also work before and after the election with monitoring and follow-up.
Liberia fought for a good and fair electoral process, and succeeded. Much thanks to a strong will both on the part of civil society and the Government of Liberia. Nikolina Stålhand says that there was very good coordination between the various actors who worked on the election, also that individuals supported and believed in the election process.

The former president quickly came out and declared himself defeated rather than protesting and blaming electoral fraud, which also helped the electoral process. Although the election is considered to have been successful, the need to maintain and strengthen democracy continuously remains.
- It was a successful election for many reasons, but of course there are things that you still need to work on, especially women's political participation, says Nikolina Stålhand.
About whale sightings
Election observation missions are often one of these two types; long-term observation and short-term observation.
The long-term observers are in the country for at least a month and observe all parts around the election. They talk to party representatives, electoral rights and civil society. They also examine social media activity, funding and media to see which areas can be improved.
The election observers then report their improvement proposals to the country's governments with the hope that these will be taken care of before the countries' future elections.
However, the most common type of election observer is short-term observers. A short-term observer is mainly on site during election day to observe the process during election day and vote counting. These observers travel around and visit several polling stations to see how well they meet legal requirements and regulations.