Support for Democratic Development: Sharing Canada's Elections Expertise [Abroad]

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This decade has seen a global wave of democratization -- or at least attempts at it -- on an unprecedented scale. In some parts of the world, the trend is rooted in the decay or fall of communism; elsewhere, nations are evolving from single-party to multi-party states because of related or other factors. Canada supports the process of democratization as one element of a foreign policy concerned with peace-building, human rights, and security. Assistance in organizing and conducting elections is just one form this support has taken.

Free and fair elections often constitute one of the first steps in the democratization process. When the means by which the people can express their …