Accra Conakry Dar es Salaam Harare Johannesburg Lagos London Nairobi Perth. Nigeria Election Watch Update April 2015

Transcription

1 Accra Conakry Dar es Salaam Harare Johannesburg Lagos London Nairobi Perth Nigeria Election Watch Update April 2015

2 02 Nigeria s new ruling party: opposition APC emerges overall winner in 2015 Elections Gubernatorial elections: Aligning with the center 2 weeks after the opposition All Progressives Congress made history in Nigeria by ending the 16 year rule of the Peoples Democratic Party and unseating an incumbent President, the opposition party has now incontestably established itself as the new ruling party nationwide by sweeping nearly two thirds of the states in the just concluded gubernatorial elections. Elections took place on Saturday 11 April in 29 of Nigeria s 36 states and results have so far been announced in 27 with elections in Imo and Abia, both in the South-East, declared inconclusive owing to a large number of cancellations. The outcome was similar to that of the Presidential elections where the PDP won a majority of votes in the South-South and South-East while the APC took the lead in the other four of the country s six regions. In particular the APC made spectacular gains in the North West and North Central, taking over 4 states in the former and 3 in the latter region from the PDP. In total, the PDP lost 8 states to the APC, including re-election bids in Adamawa (North-East) and Kaduna. Nigeria 2015 Presidential Election Results Oyo Ogun Lagos Kebbi Sokoto Kwara Osun Zamfara Niger Ekiti Ondo Delta Edo Bayelsa Koji Rivers Katsina Abuja Kaduna Enugu Kano Nassarawa Benue Ebonyi Anambra Cross River Imo Abia Akwa Ibom Jigawa Bauchi Plateau Taraba Yobe Gombe Adamawa Borno Peoples Democratic Party - PDP All Progressives Congress - APC All Progressives Grand Alliance - APGA Governor eligible for re-election 11 states (3 PDP, 8 APC ) Governor not eligible for election 18 states (14 PDP, 4 APC) No gubernatorial elections 7 states (1 APGA, 2 APC, 4 PDP)

3 Gubernatorial Election Results Oyo Ogun Lagos Kebbi Sokoto Kwara Osun Zamfara Niger Ekiti Ondo SOUTH-WEST 2 PDP, 4 APC Delta Edo Bayelsa Kogi Rivers Peoples Democratic Party - PDP All Progressives Congress - APC Katsina Abuja Kaduna Enugu Kano Nassarawa Benue Ebonyi Anambra Cross River Imo Abia All Progressives Grand Alliance - APGA Akwa Ibom Jigawa Bauchi Plateau Taraba NORTH-WEST 0 PDP, 7 APC Yobe Gombe Adamawa Borno SOUTH-SOUTH 5 PDP, 1 APC No elections held Gained from PDP SOUTH-EAST 2 PDP, 1 APGA NORTH-EAST 2 PDP, 4 APC NORTH-CENTRAL 1 PDP, 5 APC 27 state results so far announced - 8 PDP, 19 APC Current National Configuration - 12 PDP, 1 APGA, 21 APC (Imo & Abia pending) Incumbent re-elected Inconclusive results (Imo, Abia) Election violence insufficient to undermine results In an interim report, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officially noted a total of 66 incidents of election-related violence in several polling units across the country specifically identifying 5 states Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers, Rivers, Ebonyi and Ondo as being the most affected, followed by Bayelsa, Lagos and Kaduna. Some international observers have called for cancellation of the election in Rivers State (which INEC itself acknowledged had the highest number of violent incident, culminating in at least six deaths) for failing to meet international and even local standards for elections. Although the Commission says it is investigating the incidents, it went ahead to declare final election results in all of these states, giving itself a passmark overall for the conduct of the gubernatorial elections across the country. INEC is perhaps understandably more focused on the two states where elections were declared inconclusive and where it will have to conduct supplementary polls in all the wards where elections were cancelled within 30 days. A similar scenario may also play out in Taraba state in the North East, where even though an official announcement declared a win for the PDP candidate, it is now considered that elections in some wards should stand cancelled. Voter turnout, already noted to be low during the Presidential elections, was notably lower still during the gubernatorial elections, raising questions as to the reasons behind the visible voter apathy for the process. What is not questionable however is the level of popular disenchantment with the 16-year rule of the PDP which translated to votes for the APC that led the party to victory not just in the presidential and gubernatorial polls, but also in the legislative elections.

4 04 National Assembly elections: The emergence of an APC legislature The national legislative elections, which took place the same day as the Presidential elections and had a similar outcome, have given the APC an undeniable majority in the forthcoming National Assembly. The parties were dominant in their regional and state strongholds: final results for the upper house show that the PDP conceded only 4 seats in the South-South and none at all in the South-East region, but the APC had a stronger showing overall shutting out the PDP completely in the North-West, winning 13 of the 18 seats in the South-West and a 29 of 36 available seats in the North-Central and North-East, giving it a total of 64 seats in the Senate to the PDP s 45. Full results for the lower house are outstanding owing to rescheduled elections in Jigawa state but available figures show that the APC has 214 members in the 360-member House of Representatives, as against the PDP s 125, while minority parties like the Accord Party, Labor Party and APGA have a combined total of 10 seats. While the APC s electoral gains are insufficient to give it a two-thirds voting majority in both Houses, the ongoing gale of defections which begun immediately following Buhari s emergence as President-elect could tip the APC into a substantial majority which will ensure the party always gets its way in the National Assembly with little or no negotiation. Potential election contestations and reversals aside, Nigerian politics is often played out as zero sum game where anything other than a seat at the main table is not considered worthwhile. The gamble taken by those that joined the opposition in its infancy has paid off handsomely now that it has become the ruling party and while those currently crossing the carpet may be late, they clearly do not want to risk being left out in the cold over the next four years. It remains to be seen whether the PDP can recover from its losses to assume the role of a viable opposition or if Nigeria will within a year find itself in the same position it was in before the APC emerged, that of a multi party democracy where only one party at the centre can truly claim a national presence while all opposition remains confined to regional bases defined primarily by ethnic or tribal sympathies. Nigeria 2015 NASS Elections: PDP vs APC regional performance 25 PDP NORTH-EAST NORTH-WEST NORTH-CENTRAL SOUTH-SOUTH SOUTH-EAST Nigeria 2015 NASS Election Results 45 PDP APC Others Senate House of Reps SOUTH-WEST 10 APC

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