Fears of the host country

In his work, Jean-Michel Lafleur studies the consequences of a diaspora's right to vote on its relations with the host countries. Surprisingly, Canada, whose multi-cultural character is written into its constitution, is one of the countries where this vote sometimes raises questions. “Canada does not have a problem with external voting, but does with representation: when emigrants living in Canada sit in the parliament of another country. Canada fears that this will complicate its diplomatic relations, for example, if an elected politician for the Italian diaspora, who is also a Canadian citizen, speaks in the Italian parliament on behalf of Canada even though he has no mandate to do so. Canada has thus threatened countries not to allow the organisation of elections within its territory. It would nevertheless be difficult for it to ban the vote if the members of the diaspora vote at their consulate, which is protected by the Vienna Convention. Another of Canada's fears is that the political questions stimulate ethnic tensions within some diasporas and that this will undermine peaceful co-existence in Canadian society.”

To date, Belgium has yet to voice the same kind of reservations as regards emigrants voting in their territory. “There has been no difficulty because communities that could be viewed as sensitive do not yet have external voting rights,” Jean-Michel Lafleur notes. “Turkey only authorises their emigrants to vote if they go to Turkey to vote on election day(1). Moroccan citizens living abroad have a constitutional right to external voting but the implementation is restrictive and no electoral campaign has yet been run. In the future, if Turkish or Moroccan parties begin to run wide-spread electoral campaigns in the streets of Brussels, there is good reason to believe that public opinion would not react favourably. In the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the diaspora does not have the right to vote either, but its capacity to mobilise is significant. During the last Congolese presidential elections, we witnessed, during the demonstrations in the Brussels borough of Matonge, the fairly brutal nature of the Belgian authorities' reaction (police trucks, horses, etc.)”.

Interested cooperation of the European parties

Jean-Michel Lafleur stresses that granting diasporas the right to vote has generated collaboration between European political parties. “A good portion of external voters have dual nationality, they have the right to vote in two countries. We see meaningful give and take between European parties, particularly in the case of Italy. For example, during the 2012 communal elections in Belgium, an elected official of the Italian democratic party who lived in Germany sent a letter to her constituents reminding them that they had the right to vote and if they did, she would recommend them a given list. Similarly, in an Italian election, Elio Di Rupo went to the congress of the Italian Democratic Party in Brussels to invite Italians in Belgium to vote for this party”. Political parties who sometimes have difficulties organising at European level therefore work together on these kinds of questions when the electoral interests are at stake. This is all the more the case in Belgium where the European parties have their seat because of the presence of the European institutions.

In his book, Jean-Michel Lafleur studies the interest of the diasporas in external voting rights that has recently been granted to them. A constant flow: the more binding the voter registration system, the weaker the participation rate. The existence of a large diaspora in the host country and the confidence in the democratic process of the home country are two other criteria that influence the participation rate. The comparison between the Mexican and Italian situations is revealing. “In Mexico, the demand for external voting has chiefly been raised by an elite within the diaspora. Once the vote was granted, it did not really have the effect of mobilising the troops. Participation was limited, likely because of lack of information and interest, but mainly because the Mexican system is very bureaucratic and complex, there are many barriers to voter registration. In the case of Italy, by contrast, the migrants were sent ballots to their homes without their having requested them and large communities sparked mobilisation. Rates of participation among voters abroad rose to about 30 to 40%, which is high.”

(1) after a recent legislative change, Turkey will authorize emigrants to vote from abroad in Presidential elections for the first time in 2014.