From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
A civil society organisation, OrderPaper Advocacy Initiative, has charged the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) to always schedule elections into the National Assembly on a different date from that of the President.
This is part of the recommendations of the CSO) in its 2023 legislative elections observation report, presented to the public, by its Executive Director, Oke Epia, in Abuja.
The group said this is necessary to avoid a bandwagon effect in the election of members of the National Assembly.
According to Epia, the CSO observation of the 2023 legislative elections, which was carried out under its VOTER Project, supported by the USAID under the Strengthening Civic Advocacy and Local Engagement (SCALE), validated certain assumption on voters’ behaviour.
He said “a key output of the election observation exercise by OrderPaper is the validation of the bandwagon effect in voting when elections for executive and legislative positions are conducted same day.
” In other words,the practice of holding elections for legislative and executive positions is most likely to result in choosing lawmakers along the lines of a
bandwagon trend instead of adequate knowledge of the capacity, competence and character of those seeking to be legislators.
“This is as a result of the predominant attention that the presidential candidates, their political parties and the process itself generates from the media,
local and international observers,as well as other stakeholders.
“This trickles down to the voters who are often influenced to switch loyalties in line with the presidential election, hence taking sides with the political party that wins the presidency at the federal level. Consequently, this culture often leads to the emergence of winners who largely did not win on their own personal
strengths and merits.”
Consequently, the CSO says it is imperative that “the National Assembly revisits the order and sequence of election in a way that executive and legislative polls hold on separate dates.This can be done by amending the
electoral law
“The election management body should deploy its administrative leverage to address scheduling to hold elections on separate days for executive and legislative elections.”