By A. Ujo
A major milestone was reached on May 8, 2014, when South Africa conducted its fifth successful election since the commencement of what Samuel Huntington described as the Third Wave of global democratization in the 1990s. In this regard, the process of democratization in South Africa is similar to Nigeria which is planning to organize its fifth election in the first quarter of 2015. Nigeria can learn many things from South Africa.
No doubt there are differences in the structure of election. For example, the population of South Africa is 48.3 million people, while that of Nigeria is over 140 million people; South Africa is a unitary state with nine administrative provinces; Nigeria is a federal state with 36 states; the election management body in South Africa is organized according to unitary principle. It is composed of five permanent members. Election administrators who are professional civil servants are in charge of provincial administration of election. The system in Nigeria is based on federal principle with a Chairman and 12 National Commissioners and 37 Resident Electoral Commissioners in charge of each state and the Federal Capital Territory. There are 25 million registered voters and 22, 263 polling stations in South Africa against over 70 million registered voters and 120 polling stations in Nigeria.
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) of South Africa conducts National Elections, Provincial and Municipal elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Nigeria conducts elections to the office of President, members of National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly. There are, also, differences in the electoral systems. While the IEC adopts a proportional system; INEC uses the First Past the Post System. South Africa has a longer history of conducting election than Nigeria.
The country has had continuous election from the Act of Union in 1910 to 2014; in total of 27 parliamentary general elections while Nigeria conducted 8 elections were conducted since independence in 1960. The foregoing differences affect the organization and management of elections. These notwithstanding, the principle of free and fair elections, are by and large the same.
Elections can be classified as “critical” or “normal”. A critical election is held as part of the transition programme by departing colonial power or after a major crisis or transformation of the political system. The outcome of such election cannot be predicted in advance. On the other hand, a normal election is conducted as a routine exercise and the outcome could be predicted. South Africa has been able to institutionalize free and fair elections while Nigeria is wobbling towards it with the exception of the 2011 elections which were regarded as free and fair.
The provisional result of the 2014 election released on the May 10, 2014 manifested interesting facts. Some results support the foregoing discussion; while others deviate from it.
The ANC scored 62.15% compared to 65.90 in 2009. This confirms the earlier assertion that the party is on the decline. The DA scored 22.23% compared with 16.66% in 2009 which means that the party is gradually making in road into ANC territory. Both the IFP and COPE did not perform well. The IFP scored 2.40% compared with 4.55% in 2009. COPE scored 0.67% compared with 7.42% in 2009.
The foregoing notwithstanding, South Africa remains a one dominant party system. The challenge of Democratic Alliance is by and large restricted to Western Cape. The party is viewed by majority of blacks and coloured South Africans as the reincarnation of the racist National Party which introduced apartheid.
Nigeria can learn many things from the electoral system of South Africa. The first one is the modernization process. South Africa inherited, after Apartheid, highly skilled bureaucrats (Europeans) who spearheaded the modernization of the electoral process. Indeed one of the statutory functions of IEC is to promote the modernization of the electoral process. South Africa is perhaps the only country in Africa with a comprehensive modernization policy of the electoral process. Those things introduced as a result of this policy include Electronic Voter Register, Electronic Voting System (EVS) and a state of the art computerized election centre in Pretoria where election results are transmitted directly from all the 2,200, 000 polling stations.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under Professor Attahiru Jega, no doubt, is working hard to improve the quality of election in Nigeria. His efforts may be constrained by rotten eggs in the Commission. There are clear indications from what happened in the recent gubernatorial election in Anambra State, that the major social ill in the social system – corruption has permeated INEC, especially at the lower cadre of staff. The commission should, as a matter of urgency, develop appropriate policy to contain the cankerworm.
As volatile as South African is, they have been able to develop an incorruptible election management body. Nigeria should study and learn how this was done.