Kommentar /analyse af Henrik Angerbrandt, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet
Nigerias politiske elite kan blive en større trussel mod de næste valg i februar 2015 end terrorbevægelsen Boko Haram og den stigende politiske vold i kæmpelandet i Vestafrika.
Last week the opposition was called “cockroaches” (kakkerlakker) to be “crushed” by a governor. The speaker of the House of Representatives was teargased by the police. Security agents raided a party dataoffice.
Several recent events indicate that Nigerian elections are approaching.
When the president and 28 (out of 36) governors are to be elected in February next year, more than who will be voted into office is at stake.
The elections are anticipated to be more competitive than previous ones, and there are concerns that violence will erupt in relation to the elections. Apart from the Boko Haram insurgency, the behaviour of the political elite contributes to raise tension.
After the presidential election 2011, there were outbreaks of violence in different parts of the country, leaving more than 800 people dead.
A more united opposition
The up-coming election is believed to be a close competition as the four main opposition parties have come together to form a new party (All Progressives Congress, APC) to challenge the ruling PDP (People’s Democratic Party) and president Goodluck Jonathan.
Like the last election, there will – most probably – be a “Northern” candidate facing Jonathan, who is from Bayelsa State in the “South”.
Who will stand as the APC candidate is decided in December. The candidate will, by most indications, be either former military head Muhammadu Buhari, or former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.
North versus South
In face of the transition to democracy in 1999, there was a “gentlemen’s agreement” that someone from the south would be inaugurated as president, which would be followed by a northerner.
In the 1999 election, Obasanjo accordingly faced a fellow Yoruba from the south-west as contender. In 2007, the major contenders to Umaru Yar’Adua, who became president, were also from the north.
When Yar’Adua passed away in 2010, the status and content of the agreement was challenged. In the 2011 election, Jonathan ran against Buhari from Katsina State in the north.
Recognising the controversy, Jonathan promised at the time not to ask for second term. This is also why Jonathan’s decision to seek re-election is controversial in some quarters, triggering the north versus south conflict.
A divided country
The results of the 2011 presidential election showed a divided country.
Buhari won 13 states in the north but gained very few votes in south. In several states in the south, Jonathan received more than 98 per cent of the votes. Will that pattern be repeated? Not necessarily.
The low support of Buhari in the south in the 2011 election demonstrates the need to reach out nationally. To become president, there is need to obtain at least 25 per cent of the votes in at least 24 of 36 states.
While Buhari’s support in 2011 was very limited outside the northern states, several of the states in the north had governors from PDP which helped in attaining more than 25 per cent in seven of the states Buhari won.
The APC was formed last year in an attempt to have a nation-wide opposition, not splitting the votes between different regionally strong parties.
Apart from some states in the north, states in the south-west are controlled by APC. This could be used to de-emphasise the regional associations of the parties.
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Nigeria’s 2015 elections and the politics of (avoiding) violence, by Henrik Angerbrandt
Begynd fra: On the other hand, last week’s events suggest that it may not be Boko Haram and a deteriorated security situation that is the greatest threat to….
Henrik Angerbrandt is PhD Candidate in Political Science and researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. His research concerns ethno-religious conflict in northern Nigeria.
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http://www.nai.uu.se/research/researchers/henrik-angerbrandt
Kilde: Seneste nyhedsbrev onsdag fra Nordiska Afrikainstitutet (NAI).
