AN ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF DIRECT PRIMARIES ON INTERNAL DEMOCRACY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN NIGERIA
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- NGN 3000
Background to the Study
A cardinal principle on which democracy rests is popular mandate. It is the basis of representative democracy practiced all over the world. Popular mandate presupposes the unrestrained participation of the relevant community in the affairs of the community especially in the choice of those to carry out those affairs on behalf of the rest of the community members. The tool of election is one way, if not the only means of actualizing popular mandate. Similarly, political parties have become one of the pillars of democracy and a major and important vehicle for actualizing the democratic principle of popular mandate and responsible representation. If political parties are important ingredients of democracy, it goes without saying that the organization of political parties and the modus operandi of their operations should demonstrate the democratic ideals they fight to enthrone in the polity. However, it has been observed that while political parties rely in one hand, on the democratic principle of popular mandate to contest and win elections. However, many of them rarely reflect this principle in their organizational structures, administration, financing, and leadership recruitment especially with regards to selection of party leaders into party offices and in the selection of candidates for elective positions, thus prompting scholars into looking in depth at the issue of internal democracy practiced by political parties.
Internal democracy of political parties has always attracted the attention of scholars of political science (Michels, 1915, Duvuger, 1965; Dahl, 1965; Schapiro, 1972; Sartori, 1976;), but the saliency and urgency of Internal democracy in political parties has increased in the modern times given the nascent democratization wave that took over the world since the collapse of the Communist bloc, what Huntington (1991) referred to as the third wave. `Today the re-echoing theme is not only democracy and democratization but transparency and accountability in the administration of the state and institutions of governance such as political parties. This has orchestrated changes in the manner in which many political parties choose or select their leaders/candidates for elective positions, thus moving the pendulum from oligarchic tendencies/centralization to democratic tendencies/decentralization (though decentralization does not denote democracy). All over the world, the challenges of internal democratic process of political parties have led to a critical introspection as to measures of assessing the development of internal democracies in political parties. In the US, the Conservative and Democratic political parties possess a high degree of institutional integrity that isolates the parties from individual actor’s interference and processes are respected and adhered to. In 2016, even against the expectations and projections of Conservative party leaders, President Donald Trump triumphed and defeated an established political machineries. Something that is alien to Nigerian political party system.
In Nigeria however, political parties through their various stakeholders and organs of the party decide on the operational model for the party office elections; how it conducts its internal democracy, who and who funds it, and competent ways of administrating their affairs. Party leaders in Nigeria are prominent for stopping candidates perceived as troubling in character or too independent minded but have rather promoted docile and incompetent candidates in a cash and carry transaction pattern that has defined our current Republic and electoral process. Promoting Internal democracy in political parties has not only gained grounds and currency in modern day politics and governance but its promoters believe that " Political parties that practice what they preach, in the sense of using internally democratic procedures for their deliberation and decisions, strengthen democratic culture generally" (Scarrow, 2005) .
Thus, political parties all over the world have devised mechanisms of choosing leaders and candidates for elective offices, the most democratic of them being the use of party primaries. Party primaries for the purposes of this discourse shall mean the initial electoral contest amongst aspirants for the purpose of winning the nominations of their parties to become candidates of the party for the general elections. This is in tandem with the procedural or minimalist definition of democracy that defines democracy pragmatically as "the selection of leaders through competitive elections by the people they govern". (Huntington, 1991). In Schumpeter's view democracy is " that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people's vote"(in Huntington,1991). As election has become acceptable means of choosing leaders or occupants of elective offices in a democracy, therefore political parties as vehicles for democratization should showcase democracy in their internal decision making and selection process of leaders/candidates for election.
In Nigeria's representative democracy the problem has reached an egregious situation where political parties presents more than one candidate for an elective position because each is armed with a court judgment declaring him or her as the legitimate candidate of their political party, with the attendant consequence that voters are not only confused but cheated out of an electoral contest in which they vote for a particular party candidate while another is declared the winner either by the courts or by the national executive committee of the party. The drift towards anarchy that characterize party primaries in Nigeria leaves one skeptical about the possibility of enshrining internal democracy within political parties, promoting democratization process and democratic consolidation in Nigeria. The situation has also led to excessive multiplication of 'mushroom' parties purposely created to offer platforms to those who failed to realize their ambition in their political party of first instance, resulting to an atomized party system (Sartori, 2005), The capability of an atomized party system to sustain and consolidate democracy in the face of patrimonial and clientele politics largely evident in Nigeria remains suspect.
To address some of the challenges associated with primary elections in Nigeria, the National Assembly initially decided to amend the electoral laws to restrict the choice of direct, indirect and consensus primaries in political parties to just direct primaries. The Electoral Act of 2010 was repealed by the National Assembly and re-enacted as the 2022 electoral bill where the first draft gave approval that political parties in Nigeria should adopt only the direct primaries as the only mode to choose candidates for all elective positions and that they should be monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Although the President vetoed this provision, the national assembly had returned a revised bill with the status quo provision of direct, indirect and consensus as the optional mode of selection of candidates by political parties. Fortunately, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the 25th of February, 2022 assented to the electoral re-enacted bill, 2021 and it became the electoral Act, 2022, which now is the principal law of conducting elections.
For the purpose of this paper, I seek to assess the impact of direct primaries on internal democracy of political parties in Nigeria. By simple definitions, Ujo (2012) submits that a direct primary is one whereby the entirety of members of a political party choose their party’s candidates while an indirect primary is one whereby party members elect delegates from among themselves who in turn decide the party’s flagbearers for the general elections. With the atmosphere already warming up for the 2023 general elections, some commentators had applauded the move to restrict political parties to just direct primaries while others argued that the restriction of political party is an infringement on the independence and internal democratic workings of political parties. The two major political parties, the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, went poles apart in argument as it regards the mode of primaries used in the election of their candidates for 2019 and 2022.
Direct primaries involve the participation of all registered members of a party in the selection of the party’s candidates. Indirect primaries on the other hand rely on the use of delegates who are often party leaders or political appointees at different levels to decide who flies its flag.
While the ruling APC went for the US-style direct primaries, the PDP fine-tuned the familiar indirect primaries for their nomination exercise in 2019. For the purpose of this paper, it is important to note that no mode of primary is better than the other and any mode of primaries can be skewed to subvert the will of the people. For instance, Egboh and Aniche (2012) argue that direct primaries give every party member a say and reveals the true will of the people on the choice of candidate’s and the representative republic we imbibed from the developed democracies. The Indirect primaries that presupposes that just a handful of delegates are elected to select candidates for elective offices remain insufficient to express the true will of majority of the members of the party.
Egboh and Aniche (2012) assert further that: “Whenever we exercise our franchise, what we are actually doing is voting for persons within our constituencies to speak for us. We all can’t go to Abuja to agree on every national issue or every national issue brought to our doorsteps before a deal is made. That would be anarchical”
From the arguments above, either side have very strong reason on why the argument should sway to their position? This research however, looks to assess the impact of the practice of direct primaries on internal democracy of political parties in Nigeria.
Statement of the Problem
This study is an assessment of the impact of direct primaries on internal democracy in political parties in Nigeria. Politics in Nigeria has been seriously monetized with political offices made so comfortable for politicians in a manner that has made the contest into political offices a do-or-die –affair. It is against this background that the Nigerian National Assembly passed into law the provisions of section 84 of the new electoral act of 2022 to streamline the party primaries mode to direct, indirect or even the consensus process to pave way for changes or reforms to the internal democracy practices of political parties. Unfortunately, In Nigeria, however, primary elections have been one of the main problems of the democratic process of political parties. The conduct of free and fair primary elections has always been a problem which continues to threaten the very survival of the political party system and questions the relevance of our practicing democracy. Indeed, the problems associated with primary elections of political parties have direct impact on the performance of democratic institutions. The Nigerian Government acknowledges that, controversies over highly rigged primary elections have been the forerunner to political violence and instability in Nigeria (FGN, 2014).
In Nigeria, political party primaries as one of the tools of assessing internal democracy in political parties. There are other tools such as funding of the party and the free expression of opinions and views by party members. For the sake of this paper, I am assessing the party primaries of political parties and its impact on internal democracy. Most Party Primaries in Nigeria have become as turbulent and as problematic as the general elections that succeeds them. Though, the Nigerian constitution (1999), the repealed electoral Act (2006, & 2010), and the various constitutions of these political parties stipulate clearly the required democratic mechanisms of elections for choosing party officers and candidates for elective offices, these statutory provisions have become mere legal frameworks respected more in their breach than actualization. Many of the political parties especially the dominant ones have jettisoned the written democratic procedures for candidate and leadership selection in preference for imposition and manipulated primaries that unleash a plethora of problems ranging from internal party polarization, defections, legal tussles, and violent measures that threaten democratic stability and consolidation in Nigeria.
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