Dow Levine, an expert on policy and strategy at Carnegie Mellon University, in a conversation with CNN, said that he was examining the issue of US involvement in other countries’ elections from the point of view of the social sciences.
“The United States has intervened in 81 elections in 47 countries since the 1946” Levine said, describing the issue of interference by major powers in other countries.
For example, he mentioned the American involvement in the Italian election of 1948 and said: “The United States was worried that the Communist Party would win the election and therefore used everything in their power to prevent it from happening. Washington threatened to cut the financial aid it was giving the country if the Communist Party would win. The government of the United States also promised to fund the electoral campaign of the Christian Democratic Party of Italy and provide them with promotional material. ”
According to Levine, the countries that the United States intervened in are: Chile, Somalia, Argentina, Italy, Israel, Japan, West Germany, Philippines, Brazil, Indonesia, Laos, Iceland, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, Greece, Guatemala, Malaysia, Nepal, San Marino, Peru, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Gianna, Thailand, Malta, Uruguay, Iran, Panama, Britain, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Haiti, Nicaragua, Romania, Albania, Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro, Cambodia , Ukraine, Russia, Slovakia, South Vietnam, Jamaica, El Salvador and Granada.
In some cases, Washington has supported candidates that have been pro-democracy and, in others, backed authoritarian candidates. American involvement in the election of other countries varies according to the political climate in each country. For example, during the Cold War, the United States supported authoritarian leaders in Russia against the communists, He continued.
Levine added that two thirds of US interventions in other countries elections was secret, and one-third of these cases happened in the open.
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