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Elections are often a key component of peace agreements, allowing countries ravaged by fighting to exercise their right to choose their government and build democratic structures. It is critical to ensure the credibility of elections as a flawed vote can set back a peace process and even result in a resumption of conflict. United Nations peacekeepers work to ensure that the entire polling process is free and fair.
In recent decades, the United Nations has helped organize and carry out elections in places such as Angola, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste, as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq.
No matter what their uniform or title, peacekeepers of all types play essential roles in the electoral process. Electoral experts prepare laws and guidelines, soldiers and police provide security, logisticians help deliver electoral material and equipment, and public information officers explain the process to the local population to dissipate fear and build broad civilian support.
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A voter casts his ballot in San Miguel, El Salvador. United Nations Observation Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) San Miguel, 20 March 1994, UN Photo/M. Grant, UN 186647
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Liberians count ballots on the first night after the polls closed in the nation's capital, Monrovia.
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