National Endowment for Democracy
Democracy Newsletter
May, 2007
Serious Flaws in Nigerian Elections Reported by NED Partners and Grantees
"Elections do not a democracy make," says Chris Fomunyoh, Africa director for the National Democratic Institute. That's probably good news for Nigeria, whose elections in April for the Presidency and National Assembly were widely condemned. NDI found
serious flaws in the electoral process.
"Democracy is not a destination – it is a journey," noted the International Republican Institute which nevertheless found that the conduct of the polls fell below international standards.
"They were a mess," reported Dave Peterson, director of NED's Africa program. In Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, the elections were "a complete farce," he says. "Ballot boxes were blatantly stolen and voters were forced to vote for the Peoples Democratic Party candidate at gunpoint."
NED grantees like Community Action for Popular Participation were prominent among the many civil society organizations that mobilized around the elections. The
Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation, for instance, monitored the governorship and state assembly elections in Abia State.
It reports that the state government sponsored armed militias to seize election materials, kill political opponents, intimidate the electorate and facilitate the altering of results with the collusion of officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The HRJPF specializes in initiatives designed to curb youth vigilantes, revenge killings and other forms of political violence by developing conflict-resolution skills through, among other things,
civil society training programs and media outreach.
But civil society groups "faced immense hostility" from the federal government and the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law complained in its preliminary report on the elections.
The Institute deployed some 1350 observers across three states in collaboration with another NED grantee, the Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), Nigeria's largest domestic election monitoring group. The TMG, a coalition of some sixty civil society groups which fielded 50,000 election monitors across the nation, called for the election
to be voided.
The Institute reports that the INEC was both incompetent and complicit in violations of the electoral process, and observes that "security officials failed completely to conduct themselves properly at polling units where they were found."
Most polling units lacked any security presence, inviting intimidation and violence. In its recommendations, the Institute calls for the prosecution of those responsible for political violence; the establishment of an independent electoral commission free of executive control; the establishment of an independent inquiry to investigate political violence; and a process of reconciliation and rehabilitation.
Prior to the election, the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), a NED grantee active in the oil-rich but turbulent Niger Delta, had warned of the
likelihood of violence.
It cautioned that the judiciary and law enforcement agencies should strive to reassure a "populace who seem to have lost all hope in the system".
The conduct of the election will have done little to improve the Nigerian people's satisfaction with democracy which fell to 25 percent in 2005 from more than 80 percent in 2000, according to a recent
Afrobarometer survey. While the Nigerian people seem to be losing faith, democracy is nevertheless making gains within state institutions. "There are certain elements of the evolution of democracy that are moving forward", said Madeleine Albright, former U.S. secretary of state, after leading a team of NDI election observers.
The run-up to the election demonstrated several positive trends in the country's democratization process: an independent judiciary that responded well to electoral calendar deadlines; a legislature that rejected attempts by the incumbent president to change the constitution and allow him to pursue a third term; a civil society that mobilized effectively to monitor the electoral process and educate voters; and a more vibrant media allowing the expression of diverse views and the dissemination of information.
Source: http://www.ned.org/publications/newsletters/0507-nigeria.html
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