International Monitoring of the Transition to Democracy in South Africa, 1992-1994

Literature › Works

Douglas G. Anglin (1995). International Monitoring of the Transition to Democracy in South Africa, 1992-1994. African Affairs, Vol. 94, No. 377. Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African Society.

Type	journal article
Scope	Wider apartheid literature
Method	archival narrative
Period studied	1992–1994
Regions	South Africa, KwaZulu-Natal, East Rand, Bophuthatswana, Ciskei
Themes	politics ideology elections, transition post apartheid, bantustans removals influx, resistance social movements
Citation key	anglin1995

Argument

Anglin assesses the scale, scope and impact of the four inter-governmental observer missions (UN, Commonwealth, EU, OAU) that monitored South Africa's 1992-94 transition. He argues that their main contribution was as peace monitors during the troubled year and a half before the election, not as election observers, and that their credit for the peaceful, credible outcome is smaller than many expected. He traces how Pretoria's initial hostility to monitoring gave way to acceptance. He then examines the missions' authority, size, funding, deployment and role, and their record on free political participation and fair electoral arrangements. He closes by assessing their legitimacy, impartiality, effectiveness, coordination and impact. The author served as an observer, which gives an insider's view.

Evidence and method

UN Security Council and Secretary-General documents, Commonwealth Secretariat and IEC reports, Transitional Executive Council records, press reports (Star, Business Day, Weekly Mail), ANC and observer-mission memoranda, correspondence, a personal communication from a UNOMSA observer, and the author's own experience with the SACC and COGSA.

Place in the debates

• Role of international observers: minimalist (passive witnesses) vs maximalist (active political actors) (see White electoral politics, delimitation and party systems). Describes both camps and finds the mandate left real ambiguity. Commonwealth (COMSA) observers were more proactive and the UN more restrictive, with wide variation between individuals.
• Did international observers reduce violence and secure the peaceful outcome? (see White electoral politics, delimitation and party systems). Sceptical. Deterrence worked at specific events, but the late fall in violence and the parties' acceptance of the result owed little to observers. Their main contribution was peace monitoring in 1992-93.
• Scale of international monitoring (token presence vs large mission) (see White electoral politics, delimitation and party systems). Shows the ANC and churches pressed for hundreds of observers while UN budget constraints kept numbers small. He treats the budget dispute, not Pretoria, as the main constraint by late 1993.

Findings

• Violence dominated the campaign until the last-minute entry of the IFP and Freedom Front, after which it fell sharply. (p. 2)

  Until the week prior to the elections, the campaign was characterized by violent conflict, especially in KwaZulu-Natal and on the East Rand.

• The election administration suffered serious breakdowns in the distribution of materials. (p. 3)

  In some 1,700 of the voting stations, there were serious delays in opening.

• Pretoria's early rejection of international monitoring soon had to be revised under pressure after CODESA II collapsed and the Boipatong massacre. (p. 5)

  Within three months, Pretoria was compelled to reconsider its categorical rejection of international monitoring.

• By late 1993 de Klerk accepted extra observers but wanted to limit their powers. (p. 9)

  President de Klerk had indicated that he would welcome observers for the elections, even as many as 100 more observers, but only to observe not to monitor the elections.

• The ANC demanded a far larger UN team than the initial proposal of about 30 observers. (p. 12)

  these immense, complex and critically vital tasks required 'a team of not less that 400 observers'.

• UN budget politics, not South African opposition, delayed the deployment of additional observers. (p. 13)

  In both cases, the delay in deployment was due to the failure of the UN General Assembly to approve UNOMSA's budget, not opposition from Pretoria.

• Observers' deterrent effect was limited and did not explain the sharp drop in violence in the final week. (p. 18)

  Clearly, the dramatic decline in violence in the final week of the campaign had little to do with the huge influx of observers.

• Bantustan regimes obstructed monitoring, and UNOMSA worked in Bophuthatswana without an invitation until the regime fell. (p. 21)

  In the end, UNOMSA decided to operate in Bophuthatswana unannounced and uninvited, which it did until March 1994 when a popular uprising toppled its puppet president.

• The four missions delivered a harsh joint critique of IEC arrangements in March 1994. (p. 22)

  (2) the single voter stream, characterized as 'one of the worst arrangements possible'

• Observers sampled polling stations and covered most of them during voting. (p. 23)

  the 2527 intergovernmental observers 'covered' 7430 of the 8478 voting stations (or 88 per cent)

• Monitoring of the count was weak, and the observers dropped the words 'free and fair' from their joint statement. (p. 24)

  Significantly, they deliberately deleted the words 'free and fair' from the draft joint statement.

• Anglin's overall verdict is that peace monitoring before the election was the observers' major contribution. (p. 24)

  The major contribution of the international observers was, in fact, as peace monitors during the preceding year and a half.

Evidence ledger

Sources used

Source	Kind	Period	How used
The South African Elections of April 1994: Report of the Independent Electoral Commission (Johannesburg, 1994)	commission or official report	1994	Supplies counts of IEC-hired monitors and accredited observers and the IEC's own assessment of COMSA's training contribution.
UN Secretary-General reports and Security Council documents on South Africa (S/24389, S/25004, S/1994/16, S/1994/717, S/1994/177, S/24456, etc.)	commission or official report	1992-1994	Principal documentary base for the mandates, numbers, budgets, deployment, coordination, and election-observation findings of UNOMSA and the other missions.
UN Security Council Resolutions S/RES/765 (1992), S/RES/772 (1992) and S/RES/894 (1994)	legislation gazette	July 1992-January 1994	Establish the legal mandate for the Special Representative, UNOMSA, and its expanded election mandate.
UN Security Council verbatim records S/PV.3095 and S/PV.3096 (15-16 July 1992); UN General Assembly A/48/PV.76	parliamentary debates	1992-1993	Quotes Mandela's, Botha's and Canada's statements on monitoring and on UNOMSA funding delays.
OAU Council of Ministers resolution CM/Res. 1386 (LVI) and OAU Ad Hoc Committee on Southern Africa Communique (IX)	commission or official report	June-October 1992	Documents the OAU's call for a Security Council meeting and the origin of the OAU observer mission.
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, Cyprus, Communique (October 1993)	commission or official report	October 1993	Shows the Commonwealth's decision to form an election observer group and fund African/developing country observers.
Transitional Executive Council meeting record, 9 December 1993, and Negotiating Council report to Multi-Party Negotiating Process plenary, 17 November 1993	commission or official report	November-December 1993	Documents the formal invitation to international observers and the request for UN coordination.
Independent Electoral Commission Act (1993), Sections 1 and 24	legislation gazette	September 1993	Defines the four observer categories and the legal framework for observers.
UNOMSA internal documents: 'Elections in South Africa' brief (9 Nov 1993), 'Guidelines on the Implementation of Resolution 772', First Quarterly Report, press releases	state archives	1992-1994	Used for the mission's planning, size estimates, interpretation of its mandate and public statements.
ANC submissions to the UN (Some Comments on the Report of the UN Secretary-General, 11 Aug 1992; Recommendations of the ANC, 24 Aug 1992)	union or movement records	1992	Shows ANC demands for a 400-strong observer team with police expertise and investigative powers.
South African Council of Churches memorandum of meeting with State President (31 March-1 April 1992) and church leaders' presentation to Vance (24 July 1992)	union or movement records	1992	Documents early church lobbying for international monitoring.
Race Relations Survey 1992/93 (South African Institute of Race Relations)	official statistical series	1992/93	Source for Mandela's turn to the UN after Boipatong.
South African and international newspapers and periodicals (Star, Sunday Times, Business Day, Weekly Mail and Guardian, New Nation, The Times, Africa Research Bulletin, SouthScan, Africa Report, Mayibuye)	newspapers periodicals	1992-1994	Document specific events (UN observers at Daveyton, COMSA mediation, Holomisa request, OAU 'token number' remark) and reactions.
Diplomatic correspondence and press statements (Botha-Boutros-Ghali letters, joint statement of international observer missions 29 Mar 1994, UNOMSA press releases, SADF reaction)	state archives	1992-1994	Shows government attitudes to observers and the missions' joint demarches on IEC arrangements.
Independent Media Commission, Report to the Transitional Executive Council (April 1994)	commission or official report	April 1994	Cited for media monitoring during the election campaign.
Author's interview/personal communication with a UNOMSA observer (7 April 1995); author's own address notes (Kriegler, Ottawa, 21 Sept 1994)	interviews oral history	1994-1995	Supplies insider assessment of New York's lack of guidance and the IEC chair's judgment.
Author's participant observation	author survey or fieldwork	1992-1994	Implicit basis of the author's evaluative judgments about observer performance.

Inference

Quantification: Illustrative figures.

Qualitative, documentary institutional narrative and assessment of international observer missions, drawing on UN/Commonwealth/OAU documents, press reports and the author's insider experience; evaluates impact by chronological reasoning and judgment against criteria (legitimacy, impartiality, effectiveness) rather than systematic comparison or testing.

Key claims

Claim	Basis	Strength
International monitoring was initially rejected by Pretoria but became acceptable after the collapse of CODESA II and the Boipatong massacre, with ANC diplomacy via the OAU and UN. (p. 522)	UN and OAU documents, Mandela's autobiography, Race Relations Survey, press reports.	Partial data
The observer presence was small relative to need and expressed financial constraints, with UN numbers fixed by budget politics rather than assessed needs. (p. 531)	UN Secretary-General reports, General Assembly debate, UNOMSA planning documents, Table 1 numbers.	Partial data
Observers had little deterrent effect on violence; the decline in the final week reflected IFP and Freedom Front entry into the elections. (p. 535)	Author's judgment from the timing of the decline in violence, press and observer accounts; no systematic incident data.	Asserted
Observer missions pressed the IEC on flawed electoral arrangements and monitored the media and security forces, finding them generally impartial. (p. 539)	Joint demarche of March 1994, UNOMSA and COGSA reports, IMC report.	Partial data
Election-day coverage was extensive (88% of stations covered) but counting monitoring was limited and thin (54% of counting stations partially reported), so the 'free and fair' wording was deleted from the joint statement. (p. 541)	UN doc. S/1994/717 figures on observers, voting and counting stations.	Systematic data

The author's caveats

Notes inconsistency in reported totals of voting stations and observer numbers across UN reports; notes UNOMSA could only monitor a sample of counting stations and the author flags that observers 'covered' stations on the basis of sampling.

Gaps in the evidence

The argument about observers' effect on violence lacks systematic incident data (e.g., Peace Secretariat, Goldstone Commission or Human Rights Committee records) compared across observed and unobserved events and areas; these existed and are now partly archived. Observer reports (UNOMSA weekly/quarterly, COMSA phase reports) and ANC/NP/IEC archives would allow testing of claimed influence on the IEC, the media and the security forces. Interviews with parties and IEC officials would better establish why parties accepted the results.

Replicability: Data poorly documented.