(iPoster) Judicializing Electoral Politics: Candidate Strategy for Post-Election Protest

• In Event: Poster Session: Democracy and Autocracy I

Abstract

When and why do candidates use legal petitions to protest their election losses? Across Africa, post-election legal petitions rarely succeed, often come with significant financial costs, and typically take months – or even years – to be decided. Why, then, do candidates turn to courts in these cases? This paper considers the case of Malawi where, in the past three national elections, candidates at both the presidential and parliamentary levels have asked courts to nullify the outcomes of their elections. Drawing on over 50 interviews with Malawian politicians, lawyers, and judges and court records from over 200 post-election legal disputes gathered during several months of fieldwork in Malawi, I develop a theory of candidate post-election legal strategy. Broadly, I argue that in contexts where political parties are weakly institutionalized, losing candidates use litigation to manage intra-party dynamics – namely, to signal strength and self-sufficiency to powerful individuals and factions. This project contributes to our understanding of intra-party politics and the role of courts in weakly institutionalized democracies.

Author

• Jessica Hickle, Yale University