London, 7 May-(ANA)-Cape Verde, Ghana, Mauritius, and South Africa are among African countries with the highest score of 12 points in an election index produced by Professor Steve Fish of BerkeleyUniversity in California, USA.
In collaboration with experts in all regions of the world, Professor Fish scored national parliaments on the e-Parliament's three principal democratic criteria:
· that there are generally multiple candidates for each seat in Parliament
· that the votes are generally counted fairly
· that a candidate or MP can express his or her views without fear of torture, imprisonment or death
A maximum of four points for each criteria meant that the highest possible score for each country was 12 points. The result is a fascinating ranking of elections from around the world.
Other African countries with high scores include Benin 11 and Liberia 10.
Elections appear strong in Central and South America with no country scoring under Guatemala's 8.
Kuwait, Lebanon and the PalestinianTerritories all score 9 points.
China achieves 1 point (one out of four for freedom of candidate participation).
52 countries out of the total 174 achieve the maximum score of 12.
The UK, in common with other Western European countries, scored 12 points.
Electoral procedure is not so strong in Eastern Europe. Russia scored 5 points; Georgia 6; Macedonia and Moldova 8; Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzogovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Romania 9; Serbia and Turkey 10; Bulgaria, Croatia and Ukraine 11.9AnA)
