Proliferation of political parties and challenges of election management in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2019-05-09
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Political Science, University of Jos, Jos
Abstract
Multi party democracy offers the citizens a wide range of choice during elections. Political parties have as their main aim, the opportunity to dislodge and replace the party in government; this they do by offering themselves as credible alternatives to the government in power by criticizing the policies of the government, pointing out its flaws ,educating the citizenry and mobilizing them for elections. This noble aim is discovered not to be the driving force of most political parties in Nigeria. They are more interested in offering themselves (for a fee) as brokers between the main parties (especially those in government) and the electorate. Political parties in the Nigeria s forth republic are discovered to be non ideological but mercantile and rent-seeking inclined. Most of them are cosmetic in outlook and mercantile in operation. The over-bloated number of political parties(91)in the Nigeria s forth republic poses a daunting challenge for effective and timely election management; beyond this, the phenomenon constitute a huge drain on the country s finances as the cost of elections continue to skyrocket proportionately with number of parties in the forth republic. Presidential electoral fortune has always oscillated between 2 main parties while 4 others have won few seats in the parliament. Analysis of presidential and parliamentary elections show that 3 main parties have always won over 95% of votes and seats leaving all others with about 5% . Owing to the continuous abysmal performances of the parties during elections as well as the challenges to effective election management, pruning the number to a manageable size is inevitable. The election management body requires constitutional re-strengthening to enable it carry out the pruning as previous efforts have being voided by the law court. The paper relied on secondary data for analysis, while adopting the rational choice theory as the framework of analysis. Keywords: Political party, party proliferation, election, multi party democracy, democracy, democratic consolidation, election management, election management body (EMB)
Description
Keywords
Political party, party proliferation, election multi-party democracy election management, election management body
Citation
Olorunsuwa, E.O. (2019). Proliferation of political parties and challenges of election management in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic. University of Jos, Journal of Political Science (UJJPS), 5(5), 185-201