By John Mayaki
An article on StearsBusiness defined a primary election as “a
mini-election where a political party elects its preferred candidate to
run for public office under its platform.” The article, titled
Explainer: What are Direct and Indirect Primary Elections, went ahead to
explain that “during primaries, parties go through an elimination
process where they trim down a pool of nominees to just one person who
will represent them at the general polls.”
In Edo State, the gubernatorial election is coming up on September 19,
and various political parties are required to provide one candidate,
each, who will represent them in the polls. By the virtue of this
requirement, and the fact that the date of the election is drawing
close, political parties are setting the stage for their primaries. For
the All Progressives Congress, the incumbent party in Edo State, there
is an even more urgent need to elect the ultimate candidate as soon as
possible, and then focus on retaining political leadership in the state.
However, primary elections are, in type and form, divided into two.
Direct and Indirect Primary Election. Direct primary election consist
of the whole registered members of a party, just like in general
elections, participating in selecting the party’s candidate through
casting votes. Whereas indirect primary is achieved through party
members electing “delegates who in turn elect the party’s candidate on
their behalf.”
For Edo APC, there may be a conflict on which method to employ. However,
with the existing peculiar circumstance of the COVID-19, a certain
method emerges favorable.
The indirect primary system, in the convergence of delegates, will need
to congregate about 5,000 people in a closed space, for the purpose of
electing a party candidate on behalf of the people and the whole
registered members of the party. Contrary to this, the direct primary
method will allow proper franchise for all members of the party, in
their districts and units, to participate in the process.
The statistical assumption derives from the 2016 primary election when
the indirect method was last used before the ultimate adoption of the
direct method in the previous convention. The 2016 indirect primary
featured over 4000 delegates. But the stated figure excludes independent
observers, journalists, and academics interested in the process. When
added, the figure rises slightly above 5000, all of them herded in a
space that closely knit the bodies of participants.
To repeat such in the face of existing realities is to commit suicide.
It is a deliberate tethering of the people at the brinks of explosive
danger. And that is why the arguments for indirect primary election
employs a logic that is flatly impotent and self-defeating. Those making
the argument claim that the indirect primary is better in attempting to
avoid the spread of the virus, yet they neglect the fact that the virus
breeds and spreads faster in packed and enclosed spaces–the exact
method that the indirect primary will operate with.
To complete the gruesome picture, some of these delegates who are to
play vital roles in an indirect primary setting are scattered all over
the country. To have them move at the moment will not only breach the
existing lockdown laws but as well put the state at the risk of
importing vectors. Worse, these out-of-state delegates will on the day
of the primary election, interact with people already on the ground and
relatively secure. In any case of transmission, the virus will go far
and wide, seeing persons even in the rural areas–which has until now
been safe–put at risk of infection. This will begin a new wave of
infection and spread, one growing down to top, from our weakest spots in
the state’s health system.
The direct primary method, however, will decongest people and protocol,
having the process done in an open place and a dispersed manner where
party members can easily observe the social distancing and other
preventive measures. When cut down to basic units, we arrive at the best
and most workable formula. Currently, there is no unit in Edo State with
over 200 registered APC members. And, without any form of doubt, it is
easy to regulate 200 individuals, applying globally administered
preventive measures, than it is with a figure staggeringly over 5000.
More so, for an aspirant like the incumbent Governor Godwin Obaseki who
lay claims to great popularity following self-proclaimed successes in
policies that have purportedly transformed the lives of all, including
members of the party, a direct primary offers a good opportunity to put
the popularity to the test.
In addition to the foregoing, there is a legal perspective to the
dilemma. Every political party has a structure upon which it operates.
They equally have laws that regulate their actions and operation. In the
particular case of the APC, the party, drawing from experiences in the
past, has established a system with national effect in matters regarding
primary elections.
Article 13. 4(V) of the APC Constitution gives the National Working
Committee power to propose regulation to the National Executive
Committee of the party for the conduct of the primary and this also
includes the mode to be adopted. It was in the exercise of this duty
that the NEC adopted the direct mode of primary for in selecting the
party’s flagbearer for the Edo State Governorship election. This
decision of NWC is binding on the state executives of the party in the
conduct of the Edo State APC primary. It will amount to illegality for
the state executives, or any other body, to now adopt the indirect mode.
Such illegality breeds conflict. These conflicts lead to the emergence
of various candidates acquired from varied primary elections among party
factions within a state. And, eventually, matters end in court. The
whole back-and-forth damages the party’s reputation, reducing its
popularity and acceptance in the larger population of people. At the
extreme, the opposition party benefits from the conflict, having the
people or the court voting or ruling in their favor. Clearly, this is
not what Edo APC wants.
Examples of legal rulings establish the authority of the National
Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress in deciding matters
of party processes – especially as it relates with the method of
electing representatives in elections – abounds.
A precedent can be found in the case involving Hon. Peter Akpatason and
Rt. Hon. Kabiru Adjoto last year when Justice Kekere-Ekun while awarding
victory to Hon. Akpatason at the Supreme Court ruled categorically and
authoritatively that: “Any primary election conducted by the State
Executive of a party has been held to be illegal.”
More recently, in the case between the APC and Engineer Suleiman Aluyi
Pere earlier this year, Justice of the Supreme Court, Rhodes-Vivour
ruled that: “Candidates are expected to obtain expression of interest
and nomination forms, present their certificates for verification and
appear before a screening committee. This is the stage at which the
domestic or internal affairs of the political party are not justiciable.
The courts will not dabble into how a member of the party is screened,
or why a member was not cleared by the party to contest the primaries.
Put in another way, before a member of the party is cleared, the party
has the power to disqualify their member, and is answerable to no one
including the courts. A dissatisfied member’s remedy is to leave the
party and seek his political ambitions somewhere else.”
Justice Rhodes-Vivour’s ruling makes clear the fact that only two
choices are available to any member when faced with a decision from the
APC NWC on methods of electing election representatives: to either
comply with it or exit the APC for another party if dissatisfied with
the prescribed method. Nowhere does it say parallel elections can be
held and imposed on the party’s national organ.
Furthermore, for a state like Edo where the sitting governor, through
multiple shreds of evidence, has shown his determination to foist
himself on the people and the party, there are more reasons to be afraid
and skeptical of the indirect form of primary election, which his
support group, is prescribing for Edo State APC. Citing again the
aforementioned article, indirect primaries “has been criticized for
being easier to manipulate by party leaders and delegates.” It becomes
clear, therefore, why Governor Godwin Obaseki is adamant about employing
the indirect primary method.
Ultimately, if those who make the argument for an indirect primary
election have their way, especially in the guise of protecting the
people from coronavirus, what then would be done in the general
gubernatorial polls in the state? Are there also indirect elections – a
method of voting that will determine who will be the governor without
the people themselves voting? This makes a better argument for direct
primaries as it will even help the Independent National Electoral
Commission to rehearse and prepare itself adequately for applying the
social distancing measures in the bigger gubernatorial election.