Drawing upon a series of 600 qualitative interviews conducted in Zambia, Gambia, and Kenya, this open access book addresses the contexts in which contemporary election observers in Africa operate.

Criticism of election observers has accelerated following controversies during the Kenyan elections in 2017 and the Malawian elections in 2019. MacDonald and Molony tackle this timely issue by first highlighting specific misunderstandings about what election observers are doing that often fuel these criticisms. They go on to explain the ways in which observer statements and reports tend to be misrepresented in the media, the way this leads to criticism, and how this can be mitigated in the future. Finally, they provide data on the observation-related preferences of non-elite citizens that can be used to inform decisions on future directions for election observation.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by UKRI.

Robert Macdonald is an expert in politics and governance in African contexts. He has published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and practitioner-oriented briefing papers on politics and elections.

Thomas Molony is Senior Lecturer in African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is co-editor of Social Media and Politics in Africa: Democracy, Censorship and Security (2019) and editor of Election Observation at a Crossroads: Perspective from Africa (2025).