Direct Primaries Leave Room For Manipulations – Salihu Lukman

Salihu Lukman, director-general of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), says compelling all political parties to adopt direct primary as mode of electing their candidates leaves room for manipulations.

The national assembly, on Tuesday, approved the conference committee report on the electoral act amendment bill.

Speaking on the development, Lukman, in a statement on Saturday, said: “For instance, the only thing that exists as means of identification of party members is an ordinary piece of paper and records of members exist only in hard copies available perhaps to only ward officials and the national secretariat of the party. It leaves much room for manipulation and extraneous practices.”

“Beyond the sentiments in favour of direct primary, therefore, there is the need to properly outline a clear administrative framework under the law.”

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“This will guide the process and guarantee that all the bad practices associated with the indirect method of electing party candidates are eliminated.”

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He added that “in several respects, the issue of compelling parties to use direct method for internal party elections as part of the Electoral Act is also popular perhaps because increasingly many political party members and leaders have lost confidence that parties can on their own adopt internal rules that can truly allow for direct primary.”

“Otherwise, ordinarily the choice of the direct primary should be decided internally within parties. To a large extent, it is also a matter that should define the ideological orientation of parties,”