BEYOND popular slogans and official cynicism and deception let us try to articulate the features of a free and fair election. But before doing this, I would like to make one preliminary assumption and one prescription of a general nature. The assumption is that the political setting is a multi-party one, since if we assume a non-multi-party system, the set of requirements for a free and fair election will be different. By multi-party political setting we mean that the right to form political parties and contest elections on these platforms is extended, unabridged and unqualified, to all citizens. I shall return to this point. The general preliminary prescription is that the political system does not admit of imposition of monetary or other material requirements on political parties or their candidates. To drive this point home: if, for instance, a political party wishes to locate its offices in Afghanistan-type caves or shanties instead of in palatial mansions or decides to campaign on horsebacks instead of jets and limousines, that is its problem. The assumption I am making regarding multipatism is informed simply by what was now been generally accepted in most parts of the world by most social classes and political forces. The prescription on monetary and material requirements is informed by the co-existence, in our country, of abject mass poverty on the one hand, and a small enclave of obscene wealth on the other. I may add here that if these provisions are endorsed by the political system, then there will be no need to ask for independent candidacy.
With this background, we may now attempt to describe what a free and fair election means, and we may do this stage by stage.
Stage 1: Voter registration: There must be a properly enacted law, consistent with the constitution, clearly stating the conditions which a Nigeria, (by birth, naturalisation or adoption) has to fulfil to be eligible to vote and be voted for. There must have been a sufficiently long publicity campaign by the relevant authorities and all stakeholders (as the saying now goes) educating the citizens at large and inviting the eligible citizens to come and register for the election. The registration centers must be sufficiently large in number, and well spaced, in such a way that no citizen seeking to register should be discouraged by reason of distance or congestion. In concrete terms, a voting centre must be within reasonable walking distance from the home or working place of every citizen. There must be sufficient registration materials and sufficient number of registration officers at every registration centre, at all time during the period of registration. The registration period (the number of days and the number of hours each day) must be long enough to accommodate all those who wish to register. The communication between the registration officials and citizens coming for registration must be in a language understood by both sides; the procedure must be simple and transparent and a citizen, whatever his level of education or literacy, must be able to complete the process with minimal assistance. Finally, and most importantly, at the end of the registration exercise, the voters' register so complied must reflect what actually took place: no multiple registration and no disenfranchisement, deliberate or accidental.
Stage 2: Registration of parties and their candidates: We are assuming a multi-party political system not because multipartism is part of the definition of democracy but because multipatism is the only form of democratic rule that is realistic at this stage of world history; and I am, of course, proceeding from Abraham Lincoln's definition of democracy as "government of the people by the people, and for the people" The qualifications for eligibility to stand as candidate in any election should be very clearly stated and publicised as widely and as effectively as the qualification to be a voter. And the electoral agency and its functionaries must not manipulate the process of registration of candidates. It is the responsibility of the parties to select its candidates, by whatever methods decided upon by the relevant organs of the parties. And where there are rival candidates from the same party or a dispute over a party's choice, the electoral agency should be guided by the party's constitution and rules in settling the matter. Any other disaffection should go to the courts for adjucation.
Stage 3: the campaigns: An election cannot be said to be free or fair if there are no campaigns or, if campaigns are allowed, they are conducted under intimidation, threats, violence, fear or other forms of terrorism. For an election to be deemed free and fair, the following minimum conditions must hold: all competing parties and all competing candidates must be allowed equal access to publicly-owned media, electronic and print; both the publicly-owned and private media and their practitioners must enjoy full freedom, limited only by previously existing laws of the land and not laws hurriedly enacted for checking individual or press freedom; the Electoral Act must state whether human rights and press freedom violation issues should go before the normal courts or should be brought before special courts or tribunals set up by law for the purpose; parties, candidates and their supporter-and indeed, all citizens - must suffer no obstruction in organising and conducting campaigns. If campaigners are required to "apply" for permission to hold rallies or meetings, this must be solely for the purpose of ensuring police protection. Permission must be automatic; there would neither be inducement nor bribery of the electoral agency or its officials, security agents, opposing party agents, or voters, before, during or after the election. There should be no thuggery, no violence, no intimidation, no restriction, no harassment.
Stage 4: Voting process and declaration of result: There should be as many voting centers as there were voter registration centers; there should be no purchase of votes, of voters, of electoral officers, of security agents, of rival polling agents. There should be a correct voters' register at every polling centre; the voting procedure should be as simple as the voter registration exercise; there should be no inflation or deflation of voters' registers, no maximum voting, no multiple voting. Electoral results should be declared at the voting centers and genuine certificates signed by the electoral officers and embodying these results, should be issued to the party agents and security personnel who must endorse them. For the avoidance of doubt, maximum voting, which I personally witnessed during Babangida's transition, can be described as follows: suppose there are 500 names designated to vote in a polling centre, according to the voters' register and the distribution of eligible and registered voters. Suppose further that of those 500, only 200 had actually voted at the end of the voting exercise. The electoral agency or its officers may then decide, or agree, to sell the remaining 300 votes to willing buyers. This must be avoided. By multiple voting we mean a situation where a voter votes more than once at a polling center or votes in more than one center or voters in more than one center. In any dispute arising from the final declaration of results, the recourse must be to the certificates issued at the polling centers. In the situation sketched above, three separate and mutually independent organisations, namely, the electoral agency, the political party agents (and hence the party and the candidates) and the security agents must have copies of the results, from the grassroots up to the local government, state or federal levels, as the case may be. In that case, and the Electoral Act must be explicit on this, what is announced at the center should be legally challengeable in the appropriate courts. And, should rival or fake certificates surface in the court, as has hitherto been the case in Nigeria, then we must go back the raw votes. There must be no time limit to the determination of truth. That is part of the price of democracy.
I must admit, at once, that the attributes of free and fair elections sketched above are strict. But they are neither abstract nor utopian. They are realistic and realisable. If apply these rules retroactively, we shall have no difficulty agreeing that none of the elections held in this country since independence was free and fair. But we would also admit that, perhaps, the annulled presidential election of June 12, 1993 was fairer and freer than all the others. And going beyond our borders, we would also agree that the election that brought President George Bush of America into office and the one that recently returned President Robert Mugabe to office were not free and fair. However, in the case of the latter the main political question was, and still is, land. Just as no sane person will ask the Palestinians to decide in a vote whether they want an independent state. The question of land in Zimbabwe goes beyond election, especially one in which the racist global dictatorship has a huge interest.
June 2002
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