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Dov H. Levin teaches International Relations in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. He received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles and worked as a post-doc fellow at the Institute of Politics and Strategy at Carnegie-Mellon University. Throughout the period, the main focus of his research was the partisan electoral intervention of the world's powerful states in the elections of various countries. He wrote a book about these. The book titled 'Meddling in the Ballot Box: The Causes and Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions' was published in 2020 by Oxford University Press. The following year it won the Jarvis-Schroeder Best Book Award.
The book begins with an incident in early 2013. It was a few days before Kenya's presidential election. US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnny Carson publicly warned at a press conference that Kenyans would suffer "serious consequences" if Uhuru Kenyatta wins. An International Court of Justice investigation was underway against Kenyatta. This US attempt to defeat one candidate and win another failed in that election. But when Kenyatta attended the US-Africa summit after his election win, he has not seen that bitterness with the US for some time.
Dov H. Levin has attempted to come up with a number of examples of how many there are in the world. From January 1946 to December 2000, a total of 937 national level elections were held in the independent states of the world. Of these, Levin cites 117 cases of partisan election interference in his book. Accordingly, since World War II, 11.3 percent of elections have been biased, or about one in nine elections during this period. The United States accounted for 81 of those incidents, Levin says, accounting for 69 percent. During the same period, the former Soviet Union/Russia committed 36 cases, which is 31 percent of the total cases. He showed that these interventions took place in 60 separate independent states. The United States has made the most attempts to interfere in Italian elections, 8 times in number. Apart from this, there have been 5 intervention attempts in Japan, 4 times in Israel, Laos and Sri Lanka.
Levin's discussion of this tendency to snub foreign elections is nothing new. It has been going on for a long time. It is clear from Levin's statistics that the United States is the most active in this regard. There was a time when the US intelligence agency CIA was secretly pouring money into these activities. They were covert or secret operations. Starting from military coups, these things are done by exploiting the labor organization. Even the accusation of killing the elected head of state and government is strongly against them. These facts are not unknown to anyone today. But the US didn't care. Because, with the passage of time, new and modern versions of 'intervention shop' have appeared in the market to change their power. And it has no less customers around the world!
Mainly in the late 1960s, it was revealed that the CIA was funding several US private voluntary organisations to use them as tools for intervention in foreign countries. At that time, the Lyndon B. Johnson administration recommended that such funds be discontinued and a public-private mechanism based on the creation of an agency whose function would be to finance foreign operations. In 1974, former CIA expert Victor Marchetti published a list of CIA's covert operations. That same year, New York Times journalist Shemur Hers published a series of reports on the CIA's covert mission to change governments in country to country. The following year, former CIA agent Philip Agee wrote a book about the CIA's involvement and influence in Latin American politics. But by that time, from Chile to the small island of British Guiana, the Americans have played key role of this change of power. In the end, the US administration decided to change the old system. In a 1982 foreign policy address to the British Parliament at the Palace of Westminster, then-US President Ronald Reagan announced the creation of a new US agency that would promote liberal ideals, market economy and US-styled democracy. It was then recommended to establish a quasi-private non-profit organisation with funds from USAID, which is named National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The agency co-founder Allen Weinstein said in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” Since its inception, the NED's planned funding outcomes have been debated around the world. These are discussed in detail in my bengali book 'CIA Theke NED: Gonotontrer Feriwala Naki Markin Meddling Machine' (CIA to NED: Democracy Paddler or US Meddling Machine). It has been discussed there, how the United States of America salvages its own interests by using NED in the name of democracy overtly.
Since Bangladesh became important in the recent geopolitical reality, various activities of world powers are visible. US interventionist shopkeepers have also become active. On May 24, the US administration announced a visa policy for Bangladesh. Although they say, this announcement is for those who will work against the free and fair elections of Bangladesh. Most recently, that announcement is again appearing before us with new information like opening the folds of the carpet. The interpretation of these is also being analyzed. The US Embassy has promoted this information through paid sponsorships on social media. Visa policy is their own matter. To whom to give, to whom not to - the concerned state will understand better. But it is not unusual to raise some questions from the repeated use of these records of broken cassettes.
It is undeniable that there is no substitute for peaceful, fair and free elections to uphold democratic institutions. It is also true that great powers like the United States use various opposition parts of the country to intervene. Therefore, the respective states have to take the challenge of removing that environment and restoring confidence. But a statement from US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller indicated that the country would be subject to the visa ban on those who "obstruct the democratic election process". It is said that this will also include the person and their family members. Let suppose that those people whom is addressed by US are really committed crime. Hence the question may arise, the state that emerged as the protector of democracy and human rights in the world is in favor of the idea of 'Kin Punishment'? So, what will happen to the dictatorship that they have been blaming for such a system for so long? Because it is very common in modern law that punishment for one's crime to another is not justice. Although in some cities like Granite City in the United States, a person's crime is punished with the whole family in the name of 'Crime-free Housing'! A few days ago, US Ambassador Peter Haas said on a television channel that the media will also come under this ban! It is important to remember that a few years ago the country asked for the social media address of the applicant for visa. So that after seeing that they can decide not to grant visa. Who knows what kind of freedom by these decisions of the defenders of freedom of expression uphold!
Let’s go back to the book mentioned at the beginning of this article. A startling observation emerging from Levin's research is featured in this book, which may shake up our old view on the subject. It is often said that such external power intervention occurs in those states where democracy does not have institutional foundations. But Levin shows that only 19.5% of the incidence of partisan interference in the beginning of a democratic system, or in a state's first election. 44.4% of interventions occurred more than once in the same state. And the rate of continuous interference in consecutive elections in the same state is 71%. Analyzing the number and duration of interventions in the states, Levin suggests that these interventions by large states are actually used to achieve their own goals. Although in most cases the subject is presented as a variety of interesting phenomena. However catchy the name may be, the main goal of this new strategy of US Visa Policy is to intimidate the implementation of their own agenda, where necessary they are desperate to apply the medieval concept of 'Kin Punishment'. So, the world community should take this message that after NED funding ventures, visa policy is now a new addition to US intervention strategy.
The writer is journalist and writer
Messenger/Disha
