August 2020 Election Violence Risk Briefing
By: Matt Scott Frank
Tags: Machine Learning, Data, Elections, Democracy, Political Violence

Belarus and Sri Lanka, the two countries with national elections this month, are both at high risk of election violence.

Ladies in the Moonlight by Raja Ravi Varma

The Electoral Violence Intelligence System (ELVIS) is a machine learning driven forecasting system that estimates the risk of election-related violence for every national election every month. These posts will provide updates on the outputs of our forecasting model, give an in-depth view of what to expect in the coming month and note any technical changes/updates.

Feel free to reach out to either myself (mfrank@oneearthfuture.org) or Clayton Besaw (cbesaw@oneearthfuture.org) for any questions regarding our ELVIS platform or analyses contained in the updates.

June 2020 ELVIS Report:

Data and algorithm updates

Updated precipitation (SPI) estimates using NOAA’s June 2020 PREC/L release (https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.prel.html).

Corrected election dates for the following countries: Belarus, New Zealand

MAJOR UPDATE: Starting last year our team made an effort to audit our full election list to correct for potential miscodings surrounding election types, dates and outcomes. As a result, 156 corrections have been made to both the election list and our August 2020 REIGN data. You can find a table of changes made here. Credit to OEF Researcher Matthew Frank for leading our elections audit.

Risk Forecast for August 2020

Though there are only two national elections this month, both have high estimated risks of election violence and the potential to be highly politically impactful.

Sri Lanka’s high risk of election violence is most likely linked to its extensive history of violent elections, although recent negative economic trends may also be part of the explanation.

Tourism was already badly hurt by the Easter day bombings last year, while the coronavirus pandemic has prevented any recovery in this important economic sector. Likewise, the pandemic has also severely depressed remittances.

Despite this economic strain, there is little doubt that the ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) party will gain a majority in parliament and return incumbent prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to power. The main questions are how large their majority will be and whether or not they will have to woo MP’s of other parties in order to achieve a 2/3 majority.

With such a majority, the Rajapaksa’s will likely seek to make good on promises to amend portions of the country’s constitution, shifting more power into the office of the president.

Such promises are part of a broader concern for the health of democracy in the country. Since Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the presidency last November, human rights organizations have reported harassment and arrest of human rights activists and journalists.

A win in parliamentary elections would grant the Rajapaksas and the SLPP almost total control of the federal government and likely further exacerbate concerns of growing authoritarianism.

Turning to Belarus, the run-up to this weekend’s election has been marked by massive protests against incumbent president Alexander Lukashenko, which have been met with repression and arrests by the security forces.

The proximate cause of these protests is the jailing/denial of registration of his opponents in the presidential race.

Lukashenko had been facing an unusually strong grouping of three opponents in this race, however, two were jailed while the third was not allowed to officially register as a candidate.

In addition to outright repression of his political opponents, Lukashenko has accused his long-time allies in the Russian government of meddling in the election.

Indeed, Lukashenko has attempted to characterize his challengers in the race as puppets of the Russian government and recently arrested 33 alleged Russian mercenaries near Minsk.

It is likely that such allegations are fabrications, however, they point both to Belarus’ deteriorating relationship with Russia and Lukashenko’s perceived need to discredit his opponents politically in addition to removing their ability to formally challenge him for office.

Lukashenko has come under intense scrutiny for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, which he has largely dismissed, characterizing it as a “psychosis” and recommending that infected individuals drink vodka, among other bizarre remedies.

Being both politically vulnerable due to the pandemic and facing a more motivated opposition, Lukashenko is likely feeling a weaker grip on power in the lead up to this election.

While this time period has already seem some violent repression, Lukashenko may be keen to continue or expand such repression should protests continue on election day in order to demonstrate his hold on power.

Looking to this year’s remaining elections, one final note is that Bolivia again delayed their presidential elections to October, with election officials citing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

As a consequence, ELVIS has increased the country’s risk of election violence from 58.36% last month to 77.94% this month.