3 CHAPTER THE PROBLEMS FACING THE MANAGEMENT OF ELECTIONS IN WEST AFRICA AND SOME RELATIVELY GOOD OR BAD PRACTICES S ince the third wave of democratization has reached the shores of West Africa in the late 1980s, all countries have opted for the adoption of constitutions worthy of liberal democracies and for the establishment of multiparty systems of democracy. One immediate consequence of this option was the use of elections as a preferred means of acceding to power. More recently, all countries of the sub-region in the process of democratization have also opted to reduce the influence of the executive power(especially through the Ministry of the Interior) on the management of elections. But these choices do not go without creating their own problems and raise a number of important issues that must necessarily find relevant answers if one wants to ensure quality of elections in emerging democracies in West Africa. In fact, after twenty years of experience in democratization in the region, it is easy to conclude that the use of competitive elections in general, but especially the option of reducing the degree of involvement of public administration in the electoral process are issues that deserve serious brainstorming if we are to improve the quality of elections. Some problems have already been proved by experiments of election management in different countries, but others can be anticipated and prevented before they actually occur. 103