While acknowledging that international observers sometimes overstep their role, Judith Kelley pushes back against calls to replace them with African counterparts:
[I]t is not quite the time to boot out the observer organisations from the wider international community. Despite their problems, they have made important contributions, particular where they’ve worked with local officials to improve voter registries, implement other institutional reforms to bolster election processes, improve the legitimacy of competitive elections, and train domestic observer groups. Furthermore, whatever legitimate concerns there are around the role of international observers, African organisations have the same problems, only worse. With so many autocratic states and tentative democracies still on the continent, African monitoring organisations still have some way to go before they are ready to hold each other accountable.
The Dish 