Worries
are mounting over the increasing proliferation of political parties in
Nigeria as the Independent National Electoral Commission of Nigeria
(INEC) recently issued certificates to 21 parties it registered in
December last year.
The new parties have brought the number
of political parties in the country to a staggering 67, thereby raising
concern on the country’s ability to cope with the logistical demands of
such unwieldy number of parties contesting for political offices.
Ordinarily, the number of political
parties in a country where freedom of association is constitutionally
guaranteed should be of little concern. Section
40 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) states: “Every person shall be
entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in
particular he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or
any other association for the protection of his interests.”
This liberal disposition to the
registration of parties has been taken advantage of by politicians with
the result that the sheer number of parties may soon constitute a source
of confusion to voters and pose administrative hurdles for the
electoral umpire during national elections.
The proliferation of political parties is
difficult to understand except in the context of Nigeria’s political
history following the lengthy periods of military rule.
As the military planned to disengage,
they encouraged the formation of political parties whose founders were
then paid considerable sums for various reasons.
The rush by politicians to found
political parties rather than align with the ones with which they share
similar ideologies have persisted till now, with no fewer than 115
parties seeking registration at the end of last year, out of which INEC
registered 21. If the agency had accepted to register all the parties, Nigeria would today be contending with nearly 160 political parties.
It is, indeed, troubling that political
parties are now viewed as business ventures set up in anticipation of
financial offers in return for clandestine endorsements of wealthy
candidates running for office. Some
of these parties often have nothing on the ground in terms of
membership, influence or geographical spread, and may not even have more
than a couple of offices in a few cities. Their
essential credential is that they are registered political parties,
recognised by INEC to compete for power in national elections. This
system of selling endorsements can only lead to corruption.
Nigerians’ loose definition of a political party constitutes the core of this problem. In
other countries, a political party is strictly defined as an
organisation “subscribing to a certain ideology or formed around very
special issues” with the aim to participate in power, usually by
participating in elections. We
urge INEC to insist on purposeful political parties, to register only
parties with specific missions and issues, and to separate the wheat
from the chaff.Multi-party democracies have developed methods to ensure that parties stick to their purpose. The
United States has roughly 88 political parties but only three have
elected representatives at the federal level, seven others have
representatives at the state and local government levels. The United Kingdom lists 117 political parties, most of them minor, special interest, even religious parties. There
are 30 registered parties in Ghana, 24 in Senegal, 65 in Germany,
although only 13 have representatives in the Bundestag. Brazil has a
complex multi-party system with the result that eight different parties
share the 62 seats in the Senate while the 460 seats in lower house, are
shared by 22 parties, some winning as many as 66 seats and others as
few as one.
Advocates of unfettered freedom in terms
of the number of parties fear that any measure taken to limit the number
is likely to be abused by officialdom. It could lead to the bribery of the registering body like INEC or the suppression of votes in some parts of the country.
INEC must discourage the use of political
parties as tools of monetary speculation by making it more difficult to
register parties that do not fulfill the basic requirement of having an
ideology or an issue on which their existence is based. The National
Assembly should also strive to amend the section of the Constitution
that makes the formation of political parties an all-comers affair.
In some countries, for a party to be
registered to participate in national elections, it must prove that at
least three per cent of registered voters during the last election have
signed up as its members. Politicians keen on registering new political
parties should be able to demonstrate
the seriousness of their cause by gathering three per cent of the
signatures of persons registered for the last election. In the United
States, the requirements vary from state to state because the country
does not have a national party. Each state party is independent and sets its own standard. For
instance, to run as an independent presidential candidate in Alabama,
the new candidate must collect signatures equivalent to three per cent
of the total votes cast in the last election for the specific race or
three per cent of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election for
statewide races. Verifiable
signatures are not the easiest things to collect. Stringent measures
such as this will help to keep only but the most seriously committed
politicians in the race for registration of parties.
Provisions should be made in our
electoral laws for de-registration of political parties which fail to
garner a certain percentage of votes cast in a general election, maybe
five per cent. There should be a provision for “loss of recognition” for
non-performing parties. On
the other hand, new parties seeking registration should present
signatures equivalent to three per cent of the votes cast in the last
election. That way, the
parties would develop a more businesslike approach, cooperate and fuse
their ideas together and in general create a more consensual polity
which would be good for national unity. Some of these changes would require tweaking the Electoral Act. We should not refrain from doing this, to strengthen our democracy.