Reforming The Electoral Process

By

Anthony Akinola

anthonyakinola@yahoo.co.uk

 

Reforming the electoral process is about re-moulding the electoral behaviour of political actors and this can be achieved through viable structure and legal decisions.  The decision of the Supreme Court to install Chief Rotimi Amaechi as the legitimate governor of Rivers State might have taken a different dimension were ours not one society where those in positions of power behave with impurity.  They choose which laws to obey!  The argument that the governorship election should have been re-run is both constitutionally and politically cogent, as Chief Amaechi was not a candidate in the April 2007 election.

 

Our borrowed system, as also is increasingly the case in most democratic nations of the world, is one in which people vote mainly for candidates rather than for political parties.  The era of “vote the cork” or “vote the palm tree” may have gone for ever!  In this regard, it can only be presumed that any other person, other than the actual winner in an election could also have won under the platform of the same political party.  However, Chief Amaechi was the legitimate flag bearer of the “victorious” People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the eyes of the law lords and the purpose of justice might have been defeated if they had arrived at a decision which placed Amaechi’s fortunes at the discretion of the same overbearing party warlords who had cheated him of his candidacy in the first place.  When it comes to the question of wisdom, no one can rival the wise law lords. The thing about the extraordinary human beings of the Supreme Court is that no one bites them twice!

           

The judicial arm of government continues to assert its authority and independence to the delight of all of us and the members can be proud of the valuable contributions they are making to the democratic order.  However, a culture of dethroning already sworn-in candidates for new ones to replace them can hardly be the acceptable norm of our democratic culture.  My suggestion to the Electoral Reform Committee is that future elections should be scheduled in such a way that there is a gap of about 3 months between their conclusion and the actual date of installing successful candidates in office.  During the 3 month period electoral disputes can be resolved and the so-called “certificate of return” issued to successful candidates only after the various election tribunals and the courts might have concluded their “assignments”.  Once an elected politician has sworn to the oath of office he or she should under normal circumstances be allowed to complete their term of office.

           

How independent have our National Electoral Commissioners been?  This, perhaps, is one contentious area for the members of the Electoral Reform Committee to ponder.  We’ve had eminent Nigerians superintending our elections in the past but they all seem to have ended up being compromised to the ambitions of ruling politicians.  The fact that they were more or less handpicked by those with vested interests did not help matters.  Electoral officials did demand and get bribes from political aspirants so corruption is also an issue here.  The leadership and representatives of registered political parties should be involved in the appointment of key electoral officials for future elections. 

           

One has said a few things about the voters’ register in the past and one should not be too shy to restate things when it matters most.  It would be a good idea to have a Ministry of National Population and Statistics with branches in all our local government headquarters.  It should be mandatory for every birth and death in our society to be registered, so that the voters’ register is mainly updated.  The long term significance of registering births and deaths cannot be overstated.  Apart from having reliable figures for the various communities and the nation, fictitious names and multiple voting could be considerably reduced.

           

One also believes that future elections would be a lot easier to manage if staggered.  Staggering future elections may necessitate a change in the terms of office we give to our elected politicians.  One will not hesitate to suggest that we give the senators a renewable term of 6 years; representatives a renewable term of 4 years; while the president is limited to a single term of 6 or 7 years.  The single-term presidency is desirable in our peculiar circumstances, not least because of the historic rivalry between key ethno-sectional constituencies which will remain permanently with us.  The principle of leadership rotation should be entrenched in a new constitution; the relationship between single-term and the principle of rotation is like that between the Siamese twin – inseparable.

           

Finally, one must say something about the political party as a principal element in the electoral process.  There were quite a few lousy “political parties” in the April 2007 elections but that, in itself, is an inevitable phase of development in the democratic area.  The United States of America may have two principal political parties today – the Democratic Party and the Republican Party- but that has not always been the case in its more than two hundred years of democratic history.  There was an era when “purposeless” parties mingled with purposeful ones.  If we choose to entrench rotation in the constitution, the prediction here is that political parties will coalesce and we could even have a formidable two-party system whose rank and file cut across all divides.  With few political parties the elections will be a lot easier to manage.  One believes we can achieve through institutional device what comes naturally to some other nations. 

           

With due respect, the idea of proportional representation enthusiastically suggested by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua at the inauguration of the electoral Reform Committee may not be quite suit able for our presidential system of government.  What proportion of the Nigerian nation does the president want to represent?  Of course there are variants of proportional representation but one thinks proportional representation is more relevant in a parliamentary or party-based democracy where seats can be allocated to political parties on the basis of votes pulled in an election.  A political party which has won 40 per cent of overall votes could be entitled to 40 per cent of seats in the legislature.  The system of proportional representation is a bit complicated and there is nothing to suggest it would not lead to more confusion in governance.

 

anthonyakinola@yahoo.co.uk