Strange things are afoot in the world of the international election observer.
You used to know where you stood: election observers from strong democracies would send teams to monitor countries perceived to be a bit, well, democratically dodgy.
But not any more. Norwegian officials announced today that next month's Norwegian general election will be scrutinised by observers from eight former Soviet republics.
The former eastern bloc countries do not have the best reputations for democratic excellence – after all, claims of a fixed election sparked Ukraine's Orange revolution last year.
But the election observer elite may have come up with a great tactic: invite countries with historically imperfect democracies to join in as "stakeholders" in the monitoring culture. A bit of carrot instead of stick.
This is why the team monitoring the September 12 poll in Norway will include representatives from: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
As recently as March this year, the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe(OSCE), the world's biggest electoral observation body with 55 member states, criticised elections in Kyrgyzstan.
The OSCE called on the authorities to "halt the deregistration of candidates on minor technical grounds, to refrain from interference with media and not to make further inflammatory statements accusing their opponents of extremism."
But Norway has something of a reputation for nursing international democracy and is arguably thinking ahead of the curve again here.
Helge Blakkisrud, of the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Affairs, one of the organisers of the initiative, said it would be the largest international observer team — with 26 members — ever invited to a Norwegian election.
He said in some of the countries there is a feeling that the OSCE, which often sends election observers, has singled out the former Soviet bloc countries for scrutiny.
"We wanted them to see that it is a two-way street," Mr Blakkisrud said, according to the Associated Press. "We also wanted them to see the Norwegian election culture. Many of them come from countries with a fundamental lack of confidence in the electoral process."
Maybe former Soviet observer teams should be sent to monitor future British elections. Ahead of the May 5 poll this year, a judge in Birmingham castigated six Labour councillors found guilty of electoral fraud "that would disgrace a <a href=""
http://icbirmingham.icnetwork.co.uk/birminghampost/news/tm_objectid=15364604&method=full&siteid=50002-name_page.html
">banana republic".
Observers from the OSCE were also invited by the US government to scrutinise the November 2004 presidential elections – the first time the body had monitored a US presidential election.
There had been some calls for the UN to monitor these elections after the shambles of the 2000 presidential which George Bush won amid allegations of electoral fraud, especially in Florida.
And Iran's hardline Basij militia made would you might regard as a cheeky offer to monitor the US 2004 presidential poll. At the time, a Basij official told an Iranian newspaper: "By this symbolic request, we want to ridicule the so-called democratic slogans of the American leaders".
