experts in conflict management, such as attorneys, teachers and religious leaders in the community, who are hired a few weeks before the election. They are given training in election law and can be called on as needed. The experts use their mediation and conciliation skills and submit reports to the EMB, on the basis of which they are paid. Their intervention can be by telephone or through public hearings in the community, where the parties to a dispute are heard from and a resolution is proposed. The programme has proved effective and the number of challenges coming before the courts, and electoral disputes in general, has diminished. There were, for example, 1113 disputes in the 1999 elections, including disputes over access for voters, candidates or political parties being impeded by intimidation and violence, or the destruction of campaign publicity. The number of such disputes fell to 314 in the 2000 elections and 253 in 2004. 565. AEDR mechanisms have since been widely and effectively used in most post-conflict countries, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia, Malawi and Mozambique, as well as South Africa. In such cases, there has been widespread use of methods of negotiation and arbitration to manage electoral disputes through the assignment of adjudicative functions and powers to civic-based structures. These had the power to arbitrate and deliver decisions that were binding on the disputants. Such mediation and arbitration committees were set up under the auspices of the EMB at the national, provincial and municipal levels, served as the first ports of call on electoral disputes and helped to alleviate pressure on the formal courts. 566. Countries such as Ghana and Botswana, which are often cited as model democracies in Africa, use party liaison committees and other communitybased structures to assist the EMBs in promoting transparent and credible elections through effective conflict mediation, management and resolution. 3. Permanent AEDR mechanisms that exist alongside EDR mechanisms a) Key steps in the AEDR process 567. In general, AEDR mechanisms may be classified as unilateral, where the will of one of the parties in dispute is sufficient to resolve it or consider it concluded; bilateral, when the parties involved need to be in agreement before the dispute can be considered resolved; and those that require third-party intervention by a party other than an organ of state. Among the first group are renunciation or abandonment and admission or recognition. The second category involves compromise or give-and-take between two or more parties. Three options are available with third-party intervention: conciliation, mediation and arbitration (see box 8.2). 185 8. Alternative EDR mechanisms (cont.)