Staggering Our Electoral Process
By
INTRODUCTION
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Between December 1998 and February 1999, over 10,000 local government
councilors and chairmen, over 500 state assemblymen, 36 state governors,
360 National House of Representatives members, 109 National Senators and 1 National President/VP ticket were elected nationwide into offices in
Nigeria. They were all sworn in between May 29 and June 4, 1999.
Here is the clincher: except for the local government councilors, whose
terms might be up in the Year 2002, - notice the word "might", used
advisedly because there are still court battles going on over this
particular issue - all these elected representatives have four-year terms,
which means that they will ALL be up for re-nomination by the end of the
Year 2002 and due for re-election in the Year 2003.
For any country, that situation is a tall political order, and an
administrative nightmare to have so many elected officials engaged
actively in political campaigns all at the same time. Governance will
virtually be at a stand-still as all of them go from one campaign site to
another, and as their opponents try to take their jobs from them.
Furthermore, theoretically, all the representatives can lose their seats
in one fell swoop - with the way and manner in which they have behaved so far, some would feel that they all deserve to lose their seats - leading
to a new "learning process" excuse all over again!
Why and how did it come to this? One can only imagine that those who
devised the election laws in our country under which these officials
contested were not forwarding-looking enough to discern this imminent
danger, while the "onlookers" were too keen to "release" the military back
into their barracks and hence wished to go on with the elections. In any
case, since no one saw the military-imposed 1999 Constitution until two
weeks before the May 29 hand-over to civilians - that is after the last
set of elections (for the presidency) of February 27, some of us
"onlookers" could be forgiven.
On the whole, the 1998/1999 election process engineered by General
Abdusalami Abubakar was a monumentally rushed job, and its effects may yet bite us if we don't make many mid-stream corrections. The same is to be said for the 1999 Constitution itself - another essay by itself.
THE SUGGESTED NEW SEQUENCING
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Now that the milk has been spilt, though, what do we do? How has this
issue been tackled elsewhere?
In the United States which runs a similar presidential and representative
system such as ours, it has been resolved through a method of differences
in terms of office of the President (4 years; two-term limit) and Senate
(6 years; no term limit) and the House (4 years; no term limit), as well
as STAGGERING within the Senate (one-third re-elected every two years.)
The argument for a longer term in the US Senate (and older-age entry level
than the House of Representatives) made in the Federalist Papers No. 62
was that its members represented larger constituencies and required a
longer time to master such constituencies and legislations, and that it
made for a more stable and sober senate compared with the more rapidly
changing House.
There is great wisdom in this American system, written into its
Constitution RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING by its Founding Fathers. It should be commended - with appropriate modifications - to the Nigerian system just for that: its wisdom.
The question though is that how can this now be done - FAIRLY if at all -
given that nothing like this was done back in 1999? Obviously, whatever
we do now requires constitutional and electoral law reforms - but let us
ignore those minor technical details of MECHANISM for now and discuss the
REFORMS needed themselves.
1. The first is to change the Presidential term RIGHT NOW to 6 years,
beginning with the incumbent president Obasanjo, and specify that he serve one term only and leave us peacefully in the Year 2005. While I have
reason to believe that this particular proposal is already in the offing
for different political reasons other than this danger of large-scale
simultaneous changes in office - I don't believe that president Obasanjo
is looking happily forward to a re- election bid - I am in support of a
one-term, six-year presidency in Nigeria (with a possibility of a maximum
of non-successive two terms) to defuse this issue of hogging an office.
The one-term limit increases the speed with which different persons from
different political zones in Nigeria can vie for the presidency. Mind
you, one is opposed to any kind of MECHANICAL ROTATION of the office of
the president, but there is something to be said for opening up the field
without concerns about an unfair use of the power of incumbency.
2. The term of National House of Representatives should be left at
its present four years, but only half of the incumbents should be
up for re-election in the Year 2003, while the other half should be
automatically extended till the Year 2005 when they will come up for
re-election for four more years.
3. The term of the National Senate should be extended from the
present 4 years to 6 years. However, one-third of the incumbents
should contest in the Year 2003, another third should be
automatically extended and be up for re-election in the Year 2005
while the rest should have an automatic extension till the year
2007. All would be re-electable for six more years afterwards.
4. In the states, the governors should have maximum of a 5-year term
(thus, present governors should be extended for one more year), while the
state assemblies should also begin their four-year terms staggered in a
manner similar to that prescribed above for the National House of
Representatives.
5. The local governments should have a three-year term, beginning
immediately, with the next election in the Year 2002. This will
enable local governments to have elections mainly in off-years, but
sometimes along with the other officers that are up for re-election.
DECIDING WHO CONTESTS, WHO IS DEFERRED
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How do we decide TODAY those presently elected officials who will be
extended by zero, two or four years? First, we must note that ALL the
officials would have served the four years for which they originally
signed up for in the Year 1999, so no howls of unfairness can come as a
result of these preferential choices for extension. Secondly, to complete
the fairness, it will be necessary to balance these preferential choices
first BY geographical location and THEN by PARTY.
1. For the National House of Representatives, for those who will be
extended for a further two years, we choose half of the constituencies
from each political zone, in congruence (as much as possible) with that
half being of the elected officials from each party, PROVIDED those
extended in a given political zone are not more than half from any one
party.
2. For the Senate, for those who will be extended for a further two years,
we choose third of the constituencies from each political zone, in
congruence (as much as possible) with that one-third being of the elected
officials from each party, PROVIDED those extended in a given political
zone are not more than third from any one party. Since there are six
senators per state, it should not be too difficult to choose two who
should run in 2003, two in 2005 and two for 2007.
3. The same kind of considerations should be done in the State assemblies
and local government councils.
4. As a concession to the leadership, the constituencies of the
incumbent leadership of the Houses and Senate (Speakers and Deputy-
Speakers, Senate President and Deputy President) should be extended for
two more years.
5. After all extensions have been fulfilled, no geographical or party
considerations are made: the constituencies have re-election contests
conducted based on when their time comes up.
The important thing to note here is that the process be done
TRANSPARENTLY. I would recommend an open lottery be done within the
restrictions outlined above, so that EVERYONE understands that no
discriminatory TARGETING of particular officials are being carried out.
For example, where party numbers cannot be split, those seats should be
left alone and extended for no more than two years.
TERM LIMITS
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I have already written above in favor of a one-term, six-year presidency.
For the other offices, I believe that it would be fair to require a two or
three-term limit for them for similar reasons to that of the presidency.
However, the issue of term limits must be separated from the sequencing
outlined above.
ADJUSTING THE ELECTION CYCLE
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The 1999 hand-over anniversary is May 29, a mid-year event. This is a
peculiar situation for the following reason:
Year 1: May 29, 1999 - May 28, 2000 - first ("green") year in office
Year 2: May 29, 2000 - May 28, 2001 - second ("settling-down") year
Year 3: May 29, 2001 - May 28, 2002 - third (nomination) year
Year 4: May 28, 2002 - May 29, 2003 - fourth (election) year
Thus we see that in fact the nomination and election ("electioneering")
years span through three years - 2001, 2002 and 2003 - out of a 4-year
term, while the entire process spans through five years: 1999, 2000, 2001,
2002 and 2003! We can see some of those posturing already occurring in
Nigeria, with many governors declaring their readiness for re-election,
and questions being asked of the president as to his pleasure for
re-election. This mid-year change-over also affects the budget cycle, with
the possibility of a new executive and legislature having to tamper with a
budget in mid-year.
I propose that ALL elections be held between October 1 and December 10 of any given year, and nominations and primaries over six months (February to July) within the same year and campaigns for five months, thereby
shortening the election process tremendously. The new executives can
therefore have full budget cycles beginning in the first January of their
first year of election.
CONCLUSION
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The above should be tasks that should be considered in the ongoing
electoral reform process. It remains to be seen whether enough support
for it can be mustered to pass some or all of these suggestions in time
for the next round of elections.
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For further complementary reading, please see:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlukoArchives/message/46
SUNDAY MUSINGS: The Imperatives of Constitutional and Electoral
Reforms in Nigeria - Mobolaji E. Aluko (May 6, 2001)
http://nigeraworld.com/feature/publication/david-west/061801.html
Remodeling democracy in Nigeria: The flaws in the military
constitution - Tonye David-West, Jr., Ph.D (June 18, 2001)
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section1
The Constitution of the United States of America
Article I [The Legislative Branch]
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/fed/fed_59.html
FEDERALIST PAPERS Federalist No. 59
Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/fed/fed_62.html
FEDERALIST PAPER Federalist No. 62
The Senate
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/fed/fed_71.html
FEDERALIST PAPERS Federalist No. 71
The Duration in Office of the Executive
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