The electoral body’s timetable may eventually bring order to the polity
Two years before the next general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has released the timetable and its broad electoral vision for the country. It has fixed February 16, 2019 for Presidential and National Assembly elections while the Governorship and State Assembly polls are scheduled to hold on March 2, 2019. “The date engenders certainty in the election calendar,” said Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman. “You know when the election will hold. So it enables you to plan. We are particularly interested in this because 2019 will be a year full of elections.”
Except for a few complaints from some politicians who expressed misgivings that there were no consultations before the announcement, the new attempt to build confidence in the country’s electoral system was applauded by a broad section of the polity, across party lines. The early release of the timetable was considered a smart move that would help both the electoral body and the political parties in their preparations for the elections. It is the first time that INEC would be giving such a long notice thus creating room for little or no excuses. As to the charge of lack of consultations, both the law and convention are on the side of INEC which should be commended for being quick on the draw this time.
The timetable for the 2015 general elections, for instance, was released in January 2014, barely a year before the election. At that period, many expressed dissatisfaction with the course of events and indeed the body polity almost boiled over when the authorities postponed the election for six weeks, citing security concerns. The new timetable is therefore a deliberate attempt to assist the political parties, security agencies and the electoral body itself to put their house in order and perhaps to confront past fears.
Indeed, the current effort by INEC is not restricted to the 2019 elections alone but aimed at standardising the timetable for general elections in the country at all times as it is done in many other democracies. Since 1945 in the United States, for instance, the elections are held first Tuesday of November in an election year. Our neighbour, Ghana has similarly been doing same on December 7 of an election year for the past 20 years.
To the extent that INEC is enabled to fix the date, within a stipulated period (not later than 30 days before handover date and not earlier than 150 days before handover date), the electoral body is resetting the electoral calendar in a manner that it can easily be predicted. “The implication is that you can predict when election would hold in the next 100 years and thereafter,” said Yakubu. Besides, INEC is striving to increase its credibility in the conduct of the 2019 elections. Last week, it announced the cancellations of manual transmission of election results from polling units for e-collation and transmission in all 120,000 units. The essence of the new platform, which it claimed has the ability to collate and transmit data across the country, is to check fraud and manipulation of results between polling units and collation centres.
As we seek to enthrone transparent elections where the votes of the electorate will not only be counted but would count, INEC should be encouraged by all the critical stakeholders to give e-transmission a trial. Indeed, given our sad experiences since independence with the existing method of voting manually, there is no justifiable reason the electoral body should not go further by experimenting with e-voting, no matter how difficult it would seem to be. The use of card reader in the last election has shown very clearly that the more automated our electoral process, the more credible the outcome.
There is sufficient time between now and 2019 for INEC to experiment with e-voting and make course corrections along the way. In addition, it is time for the electoral umpire to think of holding all the elections in one day. The present arrangement of staggered elections are not only wasteful and time consuming, they do not necessarily guarantee free and fair polls.
Quote
It is time for the electoral umpire to think of holding all the elections in one day. The present arrangement of staggered elections are not only wasteful and time consuming, they do not necessarily guarantee free and fair polls