97-11-05 Professor Returns to Bosnia to Supervise Elections

OHIO STATE PROFESSOR RETURNS TO BOSNIA TO SUPERVISE ELECTIONS

     COLUMBUS -- An Ohio State University professor is returning
to Bosnia Nov. 14 to serve as an election supervisor for the Nov.
22-23 parliamentary elections.

     Okey Onyejekwe, (O-kee On-yeh-JEK-way) director of the
Center for African Studies, is part of an international team
supervising the first parliamentary elections since the Dayton
Peace Accord of 1995.  He also supervised the Bosnian municipal
elections held in September.

     The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the
group organizing the elections, and the U.S. State Department
selected Onyejekwe for the position.  An associate professor of
journalism and political science in the Department of African
American and African Studies, he has written position papers for
the State Department on U.S. policies in Africa and on the
process of democratization.

     Onyejekwe expects to face many of the same obstacles that he
encountered while supervising the municipal elections.  Those
problems included land mines, a heavily armed citizenry, and
voters being turned away because of missing identification and
voter registration papers. 

     Onyejekwe’s duties will include coordinating with polling
stations to ensure voting rules are followed, determining voter
eligibility, resolving disputes and correcting errors, and
overseeing accountability and ballot security. 

     In 1994, Onyejekwe served as a United Nations election
observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections.  He said
the role of supervisor is quite different from an observer. 

     “Supervisors are not just observing and taking notes and
reporting.  They work with the local elections commission and are
involved in decision-making,” he said.

     The Dayton Accords called for national and municipal
elections to be held at a specified time, but parliamentary
elections have been postponed several times because of a
controversy over scheduling the presidential elections.  An
agreement reached just weeks ago calls for parliamentary
elections in November and presidential balloting in December.

     After arriving in Bosnia, Onyejekwe will have three days of
training, which consists of studying the rules governing the
elections as well as the nuances and political sensitivities of
the area.  The officials also conduct mock elections, where they
try to anticipate problems. 

     He also expects to deal again with the issue of land mines
in Bosnia.  “In September, we spent hours studying the maps of
the minefields,” he said.  “There are multiple kinds of mines
that do not always look like conventional mines.” 

     Onyejekwe said he also thinks it would be a mistake for U.S.
troops to completely pull out of the nation next summer. 

     “Many people are concerned about what will happen when the
NATO Stabilization Force leaves.  Their presence is quite
imposing.  They’re all over the place with tanks and guns,” he
said.  “I hope the Congress does not push the president to
withdraw completely in June.  Otherwise I think we would have
wasted our effort and time and the conflict may explode worse
than before.  Then you have to come back and do it all over
again.”

     Onyejekwe is a native of Nigeria who has studied and written
extensively about African politics.  He hopes to apply his
experiences with the Bosnian and African elections in a new
project on grassroots democratization he is overseeing in Ohio
State’s Center for African Studies.  “I’m trying to see the
relationship between the problems of ethnicity and region and
nationalism in terms of democracy in the post-Cold War era and
how the situation in Bosnia compares to what is happening in
Africa,” he said.

    Onyejekwe earned his bachelor’s degree with honors in
journalism from the University of Nigeria in 1972.  He earned
three degrees from Ohio State: a master’s in journalism in 1973,
a master’s in political science in 1974 and a Ph.D. in political
science in 1978.  He joined the Ohio State faculty in 1978.

                             #

Contact: Okey Onyejekwe, 292-8169 (office) or 457-6258 (home).
Written by Amy Murray.


[Submitted by: Von Vargas  (vargas.12@osu.edu)
               
Thu, 6 Nov 1997 08:52:58 -0500 (EST)]
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