The importance of ensuring election legitimacy

BY AYISHA OSORI AND CHRIS NGWODO

In Nigeria, elections have become synonymous with democracy and vice-versa. The danger of this conflation is two-fold. One, regular elections do not make a democracy and the socio-economic realities of citizens with shrinking civic spaces, restrictions on rights, intense insecurity and the increasing disconnect between officialdom and citizens is a testament, ostensibly, to our democracy’s inability to deliver sustained development. Two, elections have a well-documented history of being instruments of authoritarian control and manipulation because as Andreas Schedler puts it, in The Menu of Manipulation, “the desire of those who manipulate elections is to enjoy the fruits of electoral legitimacy without running the risk of democratic uncertainty”.

This desire to mitigate democratic uncertainty creates the tension that Nigerian elections are known for and the 2019 election is no different. Except, the stakes are higher. Discredited elections would be disastrous at a time when Nigeria is buffeted by a range of anti-state threats – a terrorist insurgency in the North-East, separatism in the South-East, militant resource micronationalism in the Niger Delta, banditry and nascent insurrection in the North-West and the Middle Belt and the proliferation of armed non-state actors. Subverted elections produce illegitimate administrations that emerge dead on arrival lacking the moral authority and political capital (and will) to govern effectively. As Nigerians migrate in droves and unemployment and poverty rates rise, rigged elections will deepen an already pervasive sense that formal political institutions are illegitimate and ineffective thus strengthening the various armed insurgent forces fraying the fabric of not just democracy but our national existence. Therefore, guaranteeing the credibility and integrity of the electoral process is extremely important.

Over the years we have seen variations of vote buying, state security agents instigating violence, ballot box stuffing, ballot box snatching, voter intimidation, the disenfranchisement of voters in opposition areas, generating fake results, collation opacity, community rigging, failure of technology, legally excluding candidates and the manipulation of the voters register. It is precisely because of this history – worldwide and in Nigeria that it is important to continuously improve on the legitimacy of election results.

What has improved since 2015?

On the foundation of reforms which started in earnest in 2011, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has since 2015 improved continuous voter registration and executed 195 different elections including 7 gubernatorial elections with only a handful of resulting court cases. For perspective, 1527 election petitions were lodged after the 2007 elections.

Specifically on the credibility of electoral process and legitimacy of election results, there are a few improvements that are worthy of note.The first is the reported enhancement of the smart card readers (SCR) for the authentication and verification of permanent voters’ cards (PVCs) to reduce the risk of disenfranchisement due to high rates of accreditation failure. INEC reports that failure to accredit is now negligible and as a result incident forms will no longer be used where PVCs cannot be authenticated. This is important because in recent past elections since the introduction of the SCR technology, those interested in mitigating the “risk of democratic uncertainty” would ensure that the SCR failed more often than it worked allowing for the required number of ballots to be marked with support from incident forms.

The second improvement is to the results collation process, a glaring black hole in the electoral process. With the introduction of the polling unit result sheet (Form 60E) which captures the certified results and is available to everyone with a camera, the collation process is democratised and enables parallel vote tabulation, which acts as a check against INEC’s collation. This process worked encouragingly during the Osun elections of September 22 allowing the collation of votes to benefit from a thousand eyes checking and rechecking published results against Forms 60E. In addition, the SCR can now transmit results – providing the collation centres and INEC’s National Situation Room with an additional check on the manual result sheets (EC8A) it receives in real time.

These two improvements are extremely important but by no means all that is required to check the well-documented propensity for election rigging.

What needs further improvement?

A simple, low hanging fix for improving the credibility of elections is public knowledge about the rules and guidelines concerning accreditation, vote collation and calling reruns. The last is particularly important considering the divergence in practice between off-cycle elections in Anambra, Kogi and Osun. INEC needs to publish the rules for making this decision to ensure that there will be consistency in application during the 2019 elections. Such clarity will prevent political actors from seizing upon any perceived inconsistency as a pretext for discrediting the process.

The next is to continue improvement of the use of technology in our elections understanding that with every new introduction there will be a learning curve. This is where electoral law reform and policy innovation from INEC is important. INEC can do more to generate and provide election related data to enhance institutional knowledge management, quality control and the continuous improvement of its processes as well as to provide fodder for independent forensic analysis of polls. There is presently a dearth of substantial information that could deepen our understanding of voter behaviour, for example, as well as the factors that drive voter turnout in some places but not others. Such data will help craft a science of credible elections.

Historically, governments in power have used foul means including the abuse of security agencies to seize electoral victories. Violence by state security actors in previous elections have been documented by organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the National Human Rights Commission. The police, prior to and during elections, have used violence and intimidation to thwart voters and disrupt the vote collation process. The compromise of security agencies has been established in gubernatorial elections in Ekiti (2014) and Osun (2016). Former Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba alleges that the Jonathan administration asked him to deploy police officers to aid the PDP in the 2014 Osun state gubernatorial polls. In his book, On A Platter of Gold: How Jonathan won and lost Nigeria, Bolaji Abdullahi details how leaders of the security agencies and the armed forces plotted to use security assets to lend an illicit advantage to the ruling party.

As INEC and stakeholders work on improving the credibility of the technical aspects of elections, the delegitimizing role of security agents in elections needs to be addressed. The directive principle guiding the conduct of security agencies should be Section 29 of the Electoral Act which grants INEC primacy over the deployment of security personnel with regard to securing the distribution and delivery of election materials and the protection of election officials. However, ensuring the neutrality of the police is beyond INEC’s remit and will take the concerted efforts of citizens, civil society, donors and political parties. While legislative amendments can secure the independence of the police from the presidency and other political actors, the reintroduction of guidelines for the conduct of security agents during elections published and discussed with security officers prior to the polls could deter misconduct and encourage good behaviour.

Like leading candidates, frequently prevailed upon to sign peace accords, the security agencies should sign pacts of neutrality prior to elections, accepting their roles and acknowledging what their limitations to disrupting and influencing the process will be. Where security agents disrupt elections and compromise the integrity of results, they must be held accountable and prosecuted.

There are multiple dangers with not consistently protecting the credibility of elections and strengthening the legitimacy of those who win elections. Those who do not want to subject themselves and their leadership track records to the ballot are constantly innovating on ways to subvert elections. When they succeed, government accountability is weak and this in turn increases voter apathy as meaningful improvements to life and welfare of the citizens fail to happen despite the regularity and high cost of elections. A deep malaise develops, and the symptoms include increased yearning for authoritarian, undemocratic rule as a counter to the growing belief that democracy is messy and slow.

Civil society must begin to plan for the improvement elections from the beginning of each cycle, e.g., May 29 2019 and work with INEC and other stakeholders to develop short, medium and long term plans to guide the improvement process instead of waking up 12-6 months prior to elections to drive reform. Election rigging and subversion plans typically start long before the elections and we must start thinking ahead with anticipation and scenario planning and leading, instead of merely reacting.

Finally, there will be no outside saviours of our democracy. The task of furthering democratization is not one we can outsource to the international community. Democracy is under threat in many countries including those we traditionally partner with in improving ours. Historically these partners – liberal democracies though they are – have often relied on authoritarians of the soft or hard variety whenever it has suited their interests and will encourage the deepening of democracy only in so far as the end results are consonant with their own strategic goals. It will serve us well – citizens, politicians and CSOs to accept that if democracy is important to us, we will have to be its champions. And what better way than consistently improving the legitimacy of elections.

Ayisha Osori is a writer and Chris Ngwodo is a writer, analyst and consultant.