4th November, 2010
The woeful performance of the U.S. Democratic Party in Tuesday’s mid-term elections barely two years after cruising into power in a landslide shows that in politics only change is constant as voters can never be taken for granted.
When Democrats came to power in 2008, they captured the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate from the Republicans. They also secured the election of Barack Obama, the first black president, in the White House. It was a complete success.
The concatenation of successes and the ambitious Democratic agenda compelled some analysts to predict that Democrats were going to be in power at least for another decade. But, all the fantasy ended on Tuesday when Republicans won back the House in a landslide and gained seats in the Senate. For Obama, it’s a case of audacity of hope turning into reality of rejection by the American electorate, to quote a BBC analyst.
In Nigeria, the internal crises rocking the self-styled largest party in Africa, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, could send it packing from Aso Rock sooner than anticipated.
The PDP is threatened by a triumvirate of forces: The in-fighting within the party, the pressure from the opposition parties and the discontentment of voters who have felt disenfranchised for years.
At the national level, the selection or election of the PDP flag bearer in the presidential election next year is threatening to tear the party apart. While President Jonathan’s camp is denying that there is an arrangement within the party that the presidency must be zoned to the North until 2015, Northern aspirants have insisted that the arrangement is sacrosanct. The bitter contention has caused a deep division between the Northern and Southern leaders of the party.
Signs that PDP’s fortunes are dwindling in the South West could be gleaned from its loss of Ekiti to ACN, Ondo to Labour Party and Edo State to ACN at the courts. It failed to rig itself into power in Lagos State during the 2007 election due to high level of awareness of Lagosians.
In Ogun State, the party is embroiled in a war between the state lawmakers and the governor, Gbenga Daniel. The Ogun crisis is threatening PDP’s existence there.
In Oyo State, there is in-fighting between Governor Alao Akala and other PDPÂ members.
In the South East, the PDP has lost Anambra State and only recaptured Abia State when the state governor, Theodore Orji, decamped to the PDP from the Progressive Peoples Alliance Party, PPA, under whose platform he was elected into office. The same thing applies in other states where the party is facing crises of legitimacy and survival.
With the discontentment of voters and pressure from the Action Congress of Nigeria in the South West, the All Nigeria People’s Party in the North and other political parties in other regions coupled with the in-fighting within the party, there are indications that the PDP may face its greatest threat to survival in the 2011 elections.
The party seems to be waiting to implode. What happened to Democrats in America on Tuesday may soon befall PDP. The ongoing allignment of forces ahead of the 2011 election is there as a pointer. While Democrats mainly suffered from the economic crisis and some unpopular policies, the PDP is regarded by most voters as a party that rigs itself into power and that they are ready to stop such rigging and other election malpractices next year. Already, the one-man-one vote campaign has begun to checkmate PDP’s rigging machine.
We call on the other political parties to begin to mobilise and sell their manifestoes to the voters and change the power equation by electing credible leaders that will be accountable to the people. It is only when the leaders are accountable to the electorate that meaningful development can take place.
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