By Teke Ngomba (Originally published in AfricaFiles)
As a perhaps, remarkable transcontinental coincidence, the first round of presidential elections in France took place less than 24 hours after the presidential elections in Nigeria. Even though France, to use the ‘established’ and ‘fledgling’ category noted by Elklit and Reynolds (2005:57), has an ‘established’ democracy and Nigeria a ‘fledgling’ one, for simple-minded, superficial comparative analysis, many are those who thought the conduct of the elections in France and Nigeria virtually at the same time, will at least add to anecdotal ‘evidence’ on how well democracy is faring comparatively in Europe and Africa. And the ‘evidence’, I need not emphasize, was aplenty.
While in France a major remarkable aspect of the first round of the presidential elections was that the country was at the verge of electing its first president born after the two world wars, in Nigeria, the stakes were even higher. According to Professor Maurice Iwu, Chairman of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the presidential election marked a ‘watershed in the political growth of Nigeria’ because it ‘will be the very first time in the history of Nigeria and the development of democracy therein that one democratically elected government that has served out a full two terms in office will be succeeded by another democratically elected government...’
The April 21 presidential elections in Nigeria took place one week after violent and bloody parliamentary elections which led to calls from opposition parties for the cancellation of the elections and the disbanding of the electoral commission which they criticized for ‘incompetence.’ After threatening to suspend their participation in the presidential elections if the results of the parliamentary elections were not annulled, the frontline opposition parties- the All Nigeria People’s Party of Muhammadu Buhari, and the Action Congress, headed by Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who only succeeded to win a court battle to stand for the election five days to the polls, finally decided to participate in the elections.
The ruling by the Nigerian Supreme Court, authorizing INEC, to include the name of Atiku Abubakar on the ballot, five days to the polls, literally meant to keen observers that even the unexpected could now be expected. On the eve of the elections, Professor Maurice Iwu, went on state TV and announced that new ballot papers, which now included Atiku Abubakar’s Action Congress, were not yet in Nigeria but assured Nigerians that the ballot papers will arrive from South Africa and will be distributed to all the polling stations before the start of elections the next day at 10 a.m, local time. That alone, was enough to confirm initial frights that things will unfold sourly on the D-Day and as it turned out, things were indeed sour.
Electoral Verdicts
It is estimated that turnout for the presidential election was approximately 58%. There were reports of polling stations opening late or not at all, and as expected, shortage of ballot papers, and in some places, there were reports of violence, deaths and vote-rigging.
Innocent Chukwuma, the head of the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), which had 50,000 election observers on the ground, called for the polls to be cancelled saying they were a ‘charade and did not meet the standards required for democratic elections’, a view upheld by the US-based International Republican Institute which said the election ‘…falls below the standards which Nigeria itself has set in previous elections and also falls below international standards…’ The European Union observers said the elections were a ‘fraud’ and the head of the European Union monitoring team, Max van den Berg, told the BBC it was one of the worst elections that the EU had observed.
While noting that there were some ‘positive trends in the country's democratization process that give rise to hope’ the National Democratic Institute said ‘regrettably, the 2007 polls represent a step backward in the conduct of elections in Nigeria.’ An observer from the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, told the BBC the elections were "fairly acceptable" rather than "free and fair."
Shortly before the announcement of the official results of the elections, outgoing President, Olusegun Obasanjo, in a televised address to the nation, reminded Nigerians that they all have ‘an abiding duty to our collective posterity to ensure that we do nothing to threaten our nation’s corporate existence and survival in the alter of political expediency’ adding that ‘at this critical period, our focus should be on a larger picture of sustaining and consolidating our democratic process.’
President Obasanjo commended the ‘men and women of good will in this land’, law enforcement agencies, including the armed forces and observers ‘who understand the complexities of Nigeria and the challenges that these elections pose.’ He said it was his fervent wish that Nigerians will ‘consider this experience as a necessary step in our journey as a people towards consolidating our democracy’ adding that ‘after all, in another four years, there will be an opportunity for a fresh contest which I hope, will take care of ballot papers and ballot box malpractices.’ This set the stage for the intervention of INEC Chairman.
In his statement preceding the proclamation of the results, Professor Maurice Iwu explained that ‘because the Commission introduced various innovations in the conduct of election this time around and because of some other developments outside the control of the Commission, there were logistics problems, the resolution of which bothered on miracles.’ Professor Iwu conceded that the 2007 general elections in Nigeria were ‘far from perfect’ and noted that ‘the very fact of the elections holding and coming to a successful end, even with the identified imperfections testifies to God’s love for Nigeria and His abiding grace.’ He called on Nigerians to be ‘thankful and count our blessings, even if we would naturally want more.’
Haven said this, the INEC Chairperson declared 56-year-old Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the presidential candidate of the governing People's Democratic Party, winner of the presidential elections with 70% of the votes. Muhammadu Buhari and Atiku Abubakar came second and third respectively. Both of them dismissed the results as fraudulent citing the series of irregularities in the voting process while Umaru Yar’Adua, whom many see as President Obasanjo’s ‘hand-picked’ successor, told state TV that he felt ‘humbled by the events of today and this mandate.’
Everything being equal, Mr. Yar’Adua will be commissioned officially as Nigeria’s new president on 29 May 2007. This, however, remains to be seen especially with uncertainties prevailing with regards to the action the opposition leaders may take. Runners-up, Muhammadu Buhari, for example, on Tuesday, 24 April 2007, without giving details, told the BBC that ‘You have to be patient and see whether it will happen on the 29th of next month. But I very much doubt it.’
As fingers are crossed across the continent and the world as a whole to see what unfolds in Nigeria in the coming days, it is obvious, that the Nigerian elections demonstrated, especially with regards to its assessment, that the thorny issue of election management and assessment still divides stake holders in the electoral process.
‘Free and Fair?’ By Whose Standards?
According to Professor Richard Katz, Professor of Political Science at The John Hopkins University in Baltimore, democracy is a ‘messy concept’ signified by the ‘endless academic debates concerning its true meaning.’ Professor Katz contends that ‘different conceptions of democracy justify different institutional arrangements and different standards for evaluating their performance- and ultimately differing distributions of authority.’ (Katz, 2005:17)
At the heart of each democracy are elections, whose quality can be conceptualized as ‘the degree to which political actors at all levels and from different political strands see the electoral process as legitimate and binding.’ (Elklit and Reynolds, 2005:53) Unfortunately, the lack of a ‘robust and comprehensive framework of analysis’ to assess elections has, according to Elklit and Reynolds:
‘left a space which has so far been filled by two equally-unsatisfactory outcomes: Either election observers make judgments on the basis of impressionistic and incomplete evidence focused on the conduct of the vote and count on election day, or observation missions (often from abroad and with their own government’s lead) call an election in a politicized way, detached from any relation to the truth of the process itself…’ (Elklit and Reynolds, 2005:57)
At the heart of these divergent interpretations is the struggle to answer the ‘simple’ question: Was the election free and fair? The question has often being followed by another question, ‘free and fair by whose standards?’ In the Nigerian elections, attempts to answer these questions rose to the fore after the verdict of election observers which were framed and interpreted within the dichotomy identified by Elklit and Reynolds.
In an exclusive interview granted by President Obasanjo to the BBC’s Robin Lustig after the proclamation of the results, President Obasanjo acknowledged that the elections were flawed and added that ‘no elections in the world could ever be regarded as perfect.’ He revealed that on Monday, 23 April 2007, he had breakfast with a group of international election observers from 18 countries and exchanged views on the elections with them. President Obasanjo said the points of view of the election observers were ‘understandable’ and ‘relevant’ and that the observers ‘understood’ what he was saying to them that ‘you cannot use European standards to judge the situation in a developing country, a developing country of Nigeria, a complex country of Nigeria and a particular situation, a type that we have never had before.’
To Professor Katz, some standards of election assessment, used to attempt an answer to the question whether an election was free and fair are universal: it is therefore not a matter of ‘European standards’ or ‘African standards.’ As concerns these ‘universal’ standards, Professor Katz contends that the ballots ‘must be counted honestly, voters must be able to cast their ballots free of intimidation or fear of reprisal, rules must be enforced in a neutral fashion and there must be a mechanism for the non-arbitrary resolution of disputes.’ While noting that no real election is likely to be perfect with regard to these standards, Professor Katz argues further that:
‘If ballot boxes are stuffed, or voters are credibly threatened with death or opposition candidates are barred from campaigning, or government coffers are opened to fund the campaign of only one party, a precise legal code is not required for the legitimacy of the outcome to be rejected.’ (Katz, 2005:36)
So, in the light of the events that took place in Nigeria during the elections, as recounted by observers and acknowledged by administrators, were the elections free and fair? In the interview granted the BBC, President Obasanjo literally answers the question head-on. He acknowledged the irregularities and said ‘but in the magnitude they happened, they could not have made the elections null and void.’ Elklit and Reynolds (2005:58) had rebuffed such assertions by asking that ‘Is an election during which only 1% of the votes are lost or manipulated and the winner wins by ½% any worse than an election during which 30% of the votes were irregularly cast or treated but the winner wins by 35%?’
The Nigerian elections have definitely occasioned the resurfacing of some crucial questions within academia and policy/political circles such as: ‘Is a flawed election better than no one at all?’ as Professor Katz famously asked or ‘should election quality primarily be assessed on the basis of the electoral process or the electoral outcome- or both?’ (Elklit and Reynolds, 2005:58)
While universally accepted answers to these questions continue to loom in the air, the failure of both President Obasanjo and to an extent, the Chairman of INEC to summon courage and declare the farcical elections null and void and call for a re-run has not only taken Nigeria several steps backwards in its strides towards effective democratization- it has killed hopes that Nigeria, the ‘big brother’ of West Africa, and some would dare to say of Africa as a whole, could set an example through these elections, for others to emulate.
When asked by BBC’s Robin Lustig what he tells people who inform him about electoral malpractices, President Obasanjo said, ‘I say to them: ‘Yes, I am not absolutely satisfied, but I am satisfied enough to say that what we have is something upon which things can be built.’ And to Professor Maurice Iwu, INEC is ‘proud of the solid foundation which has been laid with the 2007 elections.’ Building on a faulty foundation, President Obasanjo and Professor Iwu should know by dint of their age and experience, is not only shortsightedness- it is senseless.
Works cited:
Elklit, J and Reynolds, A (2005) Judging Elections and Election Management Quality by Process, in Boda, M (ed) Revisiting Free and Fair Elections: An International Round Table on Election Standards Organized by the Inter Parliamentary Union, (pp. 53-74) Inter-Parliamentary Union, Geneva
Katz, R (2005) Democratic Principles and Judging ‘Free and Fair’ in Boda, M (ed) Revisiting Free and Fair Elections: An International Round Table on Election Standards Organized by the Inter Parliamentary Union, (pp. 17-40) Inter-Parliamentary Union, Geneva
For Cited News Reports on the Elections, See:
BBC (2007) Huge Win for Nigeria’s Yar’ Adua, available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6584393.stm , accessed on 24 April, 2007
BBC (2007) What Nigerian Elections Observers Say, available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6582979.stm accessed on 24 April, 2007
BBC (2007) Q & A: Nigerian Presidential Election, available online at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6570883.stm accessed on 24 April, 2007
BBC (2007) The Candidates to be Nigeria’s Leader, available online at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6205876.stm accessed on 24 April, 2007
BBC (2007) Call for Nigeria Street Protest, available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6586867.stm accessed on 24 April, 2007
Announcement of the Result of the Presidential Election in the 2007 General Election by Prof. Maurice M. Iwu, Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, available online at:
http://www.inecnigeria.org/newsview.php?newsid=314 , accessed on 24 April, 2007
Teke Ngomba is an Erasmus Mundus Masters Student in
"Journalism and Media within Globalization: The European Perspective"
University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Comments