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Nigerians to Vote in Presidential Polls

   Julia Ritchey | Dakar  April 15, 2011
   A Nigerian man hawks snacks along a street lined with destroyed posters
   advertising Presidential candidate Jonathan Goodluck at Jos, Apr 15
   2011

Photo: AFP

   A Nigerian man hawks snacks along a street lined with destroyed posters
   advertising Presidential candidate Jonathan Goodluck at Jos, Apr 15
   2011

   Nigerians are preparing to cast their ballots on Saturday in the
   country's presidential election, a contest that incumbent President
   Goodluck Jonathan is highly favored to win.
   Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Committee, INEC, says it is
   prepared for presidential balloting after a bumpy start earlier this
   month.
   Saturday's poll is the second in a three-part general election being
   held in Africa's most populous nation, and is seen as a test of whether
   Nigeria can hold fair elections after a decade of polls marred by
   corruption and violence.
   Parliamentary elections held last week were postponed twice after
   ballot distribution problems, but INEC says all 70 million voters
   should be able to cast their ballots Saturday.
   Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, the former vice president, is
   seeking his first full term after assuming the presidency last year
   upon the death of his predecessor.
   Although Jonathan is favored to win in a crowded field of a dozen other
   candidates, his two main rivals are 68-year-old former military ruler
   Muhammadu Buhari, and the 50-year-old former anti-corruption head, Nuhu
   Ribadu.
   One voter named Mario Samuel made it very clear who he would vote for.
   "General Buhari, because he's the man whom we shall trust over all the
   other aspirants," Samuel said.
   Samuel says he does not trust Jonathan's party, the ruling People's
   Democratic Party, to tackle the problem of deep-seated corruption.
   Another voter, an unemployed university graduate, said he was going to
   vote for Buhari but changed his mind after President Jonathan promised
   to help create jobs for Nigeria's large number of unemployed youths.
   "I made up my mind that I'm going to vote for him [Jonathan], provided
   he is able to meet all his political objectives," said the voter.
   The PDP has won every presidential poll since the end of military rule
   in 1999. The party suffered significant losses in last week's polls,
   losing seats in the southwest and north, but still managed to maintain
   its majority in the National Assembly.
   A fellow at international think tank Chatham House, Sola Tayo, says
   it's unclear whether the PDP's losses will have a major effect on the
   presidential poll, but that Jonathan may lose votes for failing to
   distinguish himself from his opponents on key campaign issues.
   "Obviously the presidentials are based more on personalities. People
   will vote for the party, but they tend to vote a lot for the
   personality," said Tayo. "Goodluck Jonathan has seen a slump in
   popularity recently and Mohammadu Buhari has really, really come up
   because a lot of people are looking to him because he's a
   disciplinarian and he's anti-corruption. And they take him a bit more
   seriously than Goodluck Jonathan, some disillusioned voters."
   An Abuja-based political scientist, Ibrahim Jibrin, said regardless if
   Jonathan wins, the country is likely to end up with a far more dynamic
   political system than it has seen in more than a decade.
   "The political system will have more of an equilibrium. We've had this
   situation in which one party controls three-quarters of the states in
   the country and three-quarters of the seats in the National Assembly,"
   said Jibrin. "That created a monolithic system in which one party was
   dominant and the opposition was extremely weak."
   "The new future," added Jibrin, "will be one in which you are going to
   have three or four major parties sharing seats in the National A
   ssembly and sharing control of states."
   Jibrin says even if the shrunken PDP majority makes it more difficult
   for Jonathan to govern, it is healthier overall for Nigeria's
   democracy.
   "It is more difficult, but it is also more reflective of the nature of
   the country. I don't believe that the PDP had the type of support it
   claimed," Jibrin said. "It was clear to me that a lot of their seats
   were through electoral fraud. What you have now is a situation in which
   the representation at the political level will reflect more truly the
   political composition of the country."
   In order to win, Jonathan will not only need a simple majority but at
   least 25 percent of the vote in two-thirds of the country's 36 states.
   This rule requires candidates to try and gain the support of as many
   regions as possible. Jonathan's stronghold is in the predominantly
   Christian south, while Buhari's is in the Muslim north.
   Elections monitors will once again be on hand to observe the country's
   poll. Despite some isolated incidents of violence last week, observers
   said the parliamentary elections were mostly free and fair. Turnout is
   expected to be much higher for the presidential poll and state polls
   slated for next week.