Lessons of 2013 Anambra gubernatorial election

Even INEC admitted various shortcomings in the process.  Several election monitors also criticised INEC’s handling of the exercise. Given the many lapses in the 2011 general elections, and in the many governorship elections in several states since, coupled with significant reforms to the electoral process to achieve free and fair process, the Anambra exercise fell […]

Even INEC admitted various shortcomings in the process.  Several election monitors also criticised INEC’s handling of the exercise. Given the many lapses in the 2011 general elections, and in the many governorship elections in several states since, coupled with significant reforms to the electoral process to achieve free and fair process, the Anambra exercise fell far short of expectations. INEC set about the development of modern systems for collecting voter information, collation, transmission, and tallying of electoral data. These reforms included an entirely new process of voter registration using a “foolproof secure and reliable” biometric technology.
That the Anambra election would be problematic was clear when, despite the vaunted technology, INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega, admitted that the voters register for the state contained over 93,000 ‘foreign names’. A “cleanup operation” to remove the names went wrong because those who cast their vote in the 2011 presidential election thronged the polling stations only to find their names missing from the register. Even the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Tony Nwonye, and his family members could not find their names the voters list. Senator Chris Ngige, candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) went to court to in bid to establish allegation that the Anambra State governorship election was flawed and should be cancelled. The party itself failed in a march to INEC offices in Abuja to persuade it to cancel the exercise. A group of women in Anambra who tried to protest that they were disenfranchised because they could not locate their names in the register, had teargas thrown at them and dispersed by police.  There certainly were issues were with the election.
 It has become almost the norm that the electoral process has become part of a judicial exercise. Elections are now decided more by the courts than by the ballot box.  Since the end of military rule in 1999, all presidential elections have been decided in the courts.   Also during this period, at least six state governors were installed by the judiciary which overturned results previously declared by INEC. The abuse of the electoral process is compounded by the fact that the politicians and some electoral officials collude in an unholy alliance to subvert it.
The prevailing law is that a candidate who is returned as winner of an election can be sworn in, irrespective of whether or not there is a challenge to the election. Although this makes sense in that a loser should not frustrate a genuine victory by lengthy litigation, it also encourages electoral malpractice because the overriding principle appears to be the compelling need to declare a winner.
The Anambra State governorship election made clear that politicians are not in the least interested in whether the process is free or fair, as long as they get their way.  The troubling aspect of INEC’s role is the fact that this was just one state election into the office of governor. How prepared would it be to conduct polls into the various political offices in all the 36 states and the National Assembly and the presidency is the big imponderable that has evolved. Failed or controversial elections produce leadership whose legitimacy and authority are questionable; this in turn constitutes a source of agitation and instability in the polity.
INEC must strive to avoid such a scenario from being sustained, and to use the opportunity of forthcoming elections in Ekiti and Osun states to reduce or even eliminate the observed errors and mistakes that were due to human factors in the Anambra exercise. This is critical if officials of INEC are to restore credibility to the process and deliver on the promise of free, fair and credible national elections in 2015, and that are devoid of rancour.