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Checking in to see how this turns out. Any idea of what a Labour Party win there means, seeing as that is the “anti-establishment” candidate, at least from my vantage point?
It would mean a clean break from the political elite that has ruled over Nigeria since the country’s return to democracy in 1999 along with huge political and economic reforms
Seems this was not the time for Peter Obi. I am very biased when age is an issue because I do not think anyone as old as the president-elect is optimized for the brutal work needed to fix major structural issues in the country. Younger people are not necessarily better, but coin for coin, I prefer a younger leader.
He’s currently contesting the elections in fact he recently just got permission to inspect the ballots from the country’s electoral commission and the fact that he was able to use the courts to reclaim his mandate as governor in the past inspires some hope. Whether or not the results are completely legitimate just seeing how a minor party with barely any representation was able to become the second largest opposition in the national assembly and win in the stronghold of the president-elect shows that Nigerians are willing to work to improve themselves even if ethnicity and religion still played a huge role in this election.
I was quite fascinated to see three major parties having a real chance to win the election. I do not remember such a thing in Eastern or Southern Africa where I have a closer feel of things. Mostly it is a 2 horse race or ruling party only with a reasonable chance.
It is also interesting to see the perception around technology. Introduced as a transparency mechanism, it turns out to be depicted as an opaque electoral artifact.
The technology wasn’t used properly which was the problem the electoral act mandates electronic transmission of results but that didn’t happen on election day there’s only so much tech can do in ensuring transparency. Concerning Southern Africa there’s the new coalition in Lesotho haven’t seen anything to see if they’ve made good on their promises.
“Open the Server” is a very common slogan in Kenya since 2013. One of their opposition leaders claims the electoral commission uses a closed server system to rig him out. BY opening the server, he claims, he will proof he was rigged. Now, the problem is that Kenya does not vote by electronic means. It is a paper based voting system supplemented by electronic transmission. The paperwork available has never proofed such a rigging. Even when their Supreme Court canceled the election in 2017, it was not because it was rigged but that the electoral commission did not avail the transmission details as proscribed in law. All this to say, there is potential in using technology both to rig or lie about being rigged it. Since the technology remains a “complexity” no amount of “openness” will satiate a person whose purpose is to deny an election outcome, just as no amount of technology will discipline a government focused on rigging.
