Intervention of Foreign Governments in Elections

Imagine in 2019, Pakistan after the embarrassment of Balakot airstrikes by India, decides to intervene in the upcoming Indian parliamentary elections and as a result Narendra Modi loses and Rahul Gandhi becomes the Indian PM who is more favorable to Pakistan. Scary, right? Fortunately, it didn't happen but it is not at all unusual for countries to intervene in foreign elections to set up a favorable government towards them. In this article we will examine what is an electoral intervention, how it is done and few instances of such interventions.

What is an electoral intervention?

Since the mid-20th century, near the end of World War II, foreign governments have consistently intervened in the election of other countries. It is becoming increasingly common for countries to involve themselves in foreign elections. Sometimes this involvement is to maintain the democratic process without favoring a particular candidate or party. But in most cases, countries seek to tip the scales to give parties or candidates that support them an electoral advantage.

An electoral intervention is defined when one or more sovereign countries intentionally undertakes specific actions to influence an upcoming election in another sovereign country in an overt or covert manner that they believe will favor or hurt one of the sides contesting that election and which incurs, or may incur, significant costs to the intervener(s) or the intervened country.

Electoral interventions usually occur when the following two conditions exist: motive and opportunity. First, a country must perceive its interests as being endangered by a certain candidate or party. That candidate or party has such preferences on important issues that do not align with that of the intervening country. Second, a significant domestic actor must consent to, and cooperate with, a proposed electoral intervention by the intervening country.

There can be three modes of intervention: verbal endorsements, threats, and operations. Endorsements are done by foreign countries when they express their opinions about candidates. Threats combine an endorsement with a promise of future reward or threat of future punishment, such as threatening to downgrade future relations if the preferred candidate loses. Finally, the term operations is used when foreign powers undertake efforts such as spreading misinformation about a candidate, hacking into voting systems, or donating money to an election campaign.

How are electoral interventions done?

Main activities coded as interventions:

• Provision of campaign funds to the favored side either directly or indirectly.

• Public threats or promises by an official representative of an intervening country.

• Covert dissemination of scandalous exposes or disinformation on rival candidates.

• Sudden new provision of foreign aid or a significant increase in existing aid and/or other forms of material assistance.

• Withdrawal of aid, preferred trading conditions, loan guarantees, etc.

A wide variety of costly methods are used in order to help the preferred side. Nevertheless, electoral interventions are not limited to these activities and are quite varied in many cases. For example, In the 1964 Chilean national election, one of the components of the American intervention included smuggling frozen meat into Chile in order to deal with a severe shortage that had developed there in the pre-election period and in the 1953 Philippines election, the rival candidate was drugged right before he was about to have a major press conference.

USA & Russia: Two major powers with the record of most interventions

USA and Russia are the two countries that have conducted the most interventions in foreign elections. Total 117 partisan electoral interventions were made by them between 1946 and 2000. 81 of these interventions were done by the US government while the other 36 by the USSR/Russian government. This means that around 11.3% of all national level elections, or about one of every nine competitive elections held in that period, had been the target of an electoral intervention.

60 different independent countries have seen such interventions in their elections since 1946 by these two countries. The USA has intervened the most in Italy (8 times) while the USSR/Russia has intervened the most in West Germany (5 times). 64.1% of electoral interventions were covert and were not known to the target country’s people prior to the election day and on average, an intervention in favour of one side contesting the election increased its vote share by about 3 percent.

US intervention against the incumbent, then Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, in the 1992 Israeli parliamentary elections is estimated to have cost Shamir’s right-wing Likud party about five or six seats in the 120-seat Israeli parliament. The left wing opposition parties won a narrow one-seat absolute majority and the US intervention was likely an important factor in enabling the coming to power of Yitzhak Rabin.

However, an electoral intervention in one’s favor does not always guarantee success. In the 1977 Indian parliamentary elections, the covert Soviet intervention in favor of the Congress party could not prevent the defeat from the Janata party. In this defeat, the Soviet intervention is estimated to have assisted the Congress party in keeping only about eleven seats from being lost to the other parties. This is an insignificant number given that the Congress party lost more than 150 seats in this election.

Instances of foreign electoral intervention 

- 1948 Italian election (By US and Russia)

The United States used covert tactics of intervention in the 1948 Italian general election. First, the United States used financial means to help the Christian Democratic Party (DC). F. Mark Wyatt, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Officer stated, “We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, [and] for pamphlets. Second, multiple US agencies coordinated in writing millions of letters that were distributed to voters, making anti-communist short-wave radio broadcasts, and publishing hundreds of books and articles all of which were used to convince the Italian voter population to believe that consequences were imminent in a Communist-run Italy. Third, the US media backed the operation and made a public endorsement of the leader of the Christian Democracy, Alcide De Gasperi. The Soviet Union was also running a similar operation backing the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Wyatt estimates that as the campaign neared the election, the amount of Soviet money grew to “$8-$10 million a month...directly out of the Soviet compound in Rome”. The US intervention methodologies prevailed, and the Christian Democracy won a decisive victory over PCI. The C.I.A.'s practice of buying political clout was repeated in every Italian election for the next 24 years.

- 2017 German elections (By Turkey) 

In August 2017, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called for all his "countrymen" in Germany to vote against the CDU/CSU, the SPD and the Green Party in the upcoming German election. Erdoğan called these parties and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, "enemies of Turkey". Merkel condemned these statements, and responded that all Germans had right to vote freely without foreign meddling in the electoral process. German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel affirmed Erdoğan's statements were an "unprecedented act of interference in the sovereignty of our country."

- 2016 US elections (By Russia)

The US intelligence agencies concluded in January 2017 that Russia had engaged in cyber-espionage and distributed widespread propaganda messages to undermine public faith in the democratic process.

Special counsel investigator Robert Mueller’s report found that Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russia-based troll-farm, waged a social media campaign that favored Donald Trump and disparaged Hillary Clinton. It created numerous social media accounts which reached millions of social media users. They pretended to be Americans supporting radical political groups and planned events in support of Trump and against Clinton.

Additionally, Russian intelligence service, the GRU, hacked into email accounts owned by members of Clinton presidential campaign, including that of campaign chairman John Podesta, and also infiltrated the information systems of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and publically released the documents.

Although the Kremlin denies it but Mueller report concluded that Russian interference was "sweeping and systematic" which Putin approved and directed. Recently, a bipartisan United States Senate report was released on 21 April which confirmed the US intelligence community's earlier conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to sow chaos and warned that it could happen again in 2020.

Conclusion

Partisan electoral interventions affect a key democratic institution- the national level elections through which the executive is fairly replaced or retained.They do not always assure victory but such interventions often do swing elections. Changes in information technology now make it possible for states to undertake ambitious influence campaigns in faraway countries. The Russian interference in 2016 US elections give us an insight as to how future interventions in the elections might look like. So, it will continue to be an effective way to determine the leadership of other states. Moreover, it’s not easy to formulate effective strategies for stopping this potentially powerful form of foreign influence. One can, therefore, expect more foreign efforts to shape elections in the future. 

Featured Image Credits: TechCrunch

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This essay was placed first in the Article Writing Competition organised by Scales and States in June 2020. It has been penned by Vivek Ranaut, an undergraduate student at Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi.