Elections can open a new chapter in a country’s history. Particularly following conflicts and other crises, elections carry the weight of enormous expectations, as citizens and the international community hope polls can provide closure and allow the nation to move on. Even during conflicts, elections are sometimes pitched as proof that democracy is still alive, as exemplified by recent suggestions from a few prominent individuals that elections should be held in war-torn Ukraine. But the challenges of holding elections in these scenarios are as big as the expectations they carry.
For conflict and post-conflict elections to be a milestone for legitimacy, sustainable peace, and democratization – rather than more fuel for unrest – they must take place under appropriate conditions that may be difficult to meet in a compressed timeline. As IFES’s Peter Erben and Gio Kobakhidze have argued in the context of Ukraine, these conditions include reasonable levels of security and basic democratic standards, where people are able to “focus on a free and vibrant political contest and not on staying alive while under daily attack.” At the same time, waiting too long to hold elections can also bring its own set of problems, including political uncertainty and declining perceptions of government legitimacy.