INEC’s deregistration of political parties

TRACKING____ A Federal High Court has stopped the Independent National Electoral Commission from deregistering 31 political parties.

The suit which was filed by 33 political parties followed the deregistration of 74 political parties by the electoral body earlier in February.

INEC had claimed it was exercising its constitutional rights to strip parties that didn’t meet the requirements to remain on the ballot when it announced the deregistration of the political parties.

Unlike pressure groups, civil society organizations, nongovernmental organizations or any other political concerns, political parties are set up primarily to win elections for the sake of being in government.

And according to INEC, these parties were found wanting. After all, if INEC has the right to register, it is just commonsensical that it should have the right to withdraw such registration if and when necessary.

Besides these parties’ polls performance, many Nigerians see them as a nuisance on the ballot flummoxing the voter all the more. Accommodating them makes the ballot paper unnecessarily bulkier and more expensive to produce.

In the last general elections, over 70 candidates vied for the presidency and an average of 40 per gubernatorial seats and 20 per legislative unlike the big PDP and APC that fielded candidates for every elective post.

This is where they keep missing it by keeping their eye only on executive seats. INEC’s requirement is simply to win a state legislative seat which in some constituencies is as small as a handful of political wards.

Any serious party should be able to achieve that even if it is for the sake of retaining their registration and capitalizing for future elections.

Yes, two parties have never been forced down the throats of Nigerians, aside the fiat of the hoodwinked third republic; what irritates the Nigerian voter is pretenders on the ballot paper and not the number of options.

One can understand the nagging insistence of these parties wanting to participate in the general elections. First, they have the right to float a political party and in turn field candidates as long as they fulfil the constitutional requirements.

Secondly, with the dividends of democracy still a mirage, they will want to continue to raise the hopes of the electorate as the alternatives to the status quo. However, they should be more tactical.

The oligopolistic nature of democracies thins options into indifferentiable choices so that the dissimilarities of the leading political parties are blurred.

It is this pretense of choices this wonky electoral democracy presents that is making the European and American elector throw the dice on far-right populism.

This is what is making the Republicans and Democrats in America, Conservatives and Labour in the United Kingdom, and other binaries of developed democracies to be less moderate and centrist to more distinguishable campaigns and ideologies.

These smaller parties can cash in on this. They should work on themselves and build workable programmes that is indigenous to them and sell it to Nigerians.

They should also be transparent and democratic in their internal affairs because PDP and APC may have their share of woes, both have sustained organizational structure with membership that cuts across ethnic lines, open conventions and primaries etc.

The culture of just picking anybody as flagbearers only because the fellows possess a degree of hutzpah have not done these small parties any good.

There should be a democratic way where interested party members can vie and canvass for support amongst themselves before they are presented to the larger electorate.

Finally, they should unhesitatingly wake up before the alarm clock of the next elections because INEC will again open the windows for party registration.

These small parties can then adopt the APC-style of mergers. Of the 18 parties that remain in INEC’s log, some can only boast of a state House of Assembly seat. Those that got weeded out can build alliances and mergers with them to consolidate for future elections.

• Ayodele Okunfolami Festac, Lagos.