By Jaye Gaskia
Let me begin
by stating very clearly my intention in writing this piece. And I will confess
to having to struggle very intensely with myself before deciding not only to
put pen to paper, but to also make the outcome public.
I had toyed
with the idea of writing this now, but waiting until after the aftermath of the
upcoming general elections to publish it as a post mortem of the elections. In
that sense therefore this piece may qualify as ‘Post mortem’ of an election
that is yet to be held.
I am neither
a soothsayer nor a prophet, and I am thus neither prophesying nor making a
prediction. My aim here is quite simple, or at least ought to be quite simple.
I aim to try to trace, map, analyse and understand the current situation of the
parties vis-à-vis there defective role in our defective democracy as purely
platforms to grab power, and power without responsibility.
this
analysis is based on my understanding of the political party context of
Nigeria’s fourth republic, as well as on my understanding of the nature and
character of the political class of the fourth republic.
That said it
is important that at this point in time, and before going any further, that I
enter a sorely needed disclaimer. I am neither an admirer nor a sympathizer of
the political parties and the politicians of the fourth republic. In point of
fact I have been consistently antagonistically critical of these treasury
looting ruling class and the political platforms that they have put together to
effect their collective pillage of our commonwealth.
In other
climes, where politics and politicking is more rational, where the ruling class
secures its hegemony through rule based constant renegotiating of ruling class
consensus, such an exercise as I am about to undertake would be normal, even
expected. But alas in a context where there is no settled ruling class
consensus, where the ‘divide and rule’ strategy most utilized by the ruling
class is competitive and mutually exclusive and antagonistic mobilization of
the primordial sentiments of ethnicity and religion, this exercise becomes
delicate and almost a suicidal act.
Nevertheless,
it is an exercise that I believe is important to undertake. So where do we
start from? Let us proceed by first looking at the nature of the political
parties, and the political party formation and consolidation process of the
fourth republic?
The parties
of the fourth republic are not political formations based on principles,
programs, and or ideologies, regardless of whatever tag they give themselves;
progressives or conservatives. Unlike the parties of the First and second, and
even of the third republic, the parties of the fourth republic are different not
because of their respective programs, sets of beliefs, ideologies, etc, but
mainly in their ability and capacity to accommodate within the same platform a
greater or lesser assemblage of power blocs and factional interest groups of
the ruling class.
It is in the
sense that the PDP became the largest and most successful party of the fourth
republic, because from the inception of the fourth republic and during the
transition to that republic managed by the Abdulsalam transitional regime, it
succeeded in aggregating within its ranks the largest conglomeration of the
factions, ethno-religious power blocs and interest groups of the ruling class.
This is why
irrespective of its performance, or indeed failure in governance it continued
to be the dominant party and continued to ‘win’ elections. Of course elections
have always been manipulated and subjected to various degrees of rigging in
Nigeria, nevertheless rigging has always been an integral part of the electoral
and political process, and the capacity to rig and deliver the most rigging has
always been part of the foundational attribute of political parties in Nigeria.
If every party is able to manipulate the electoral process and somehow ensure
rigging in their area of dominance, then it stands to reason that the party
with the widest geo-political spread in terms of assemblage of geo-political
power blocs will always come out on top in any election.
This
situation becomes even more significant in an era where parties are devoid of
any difference in program or ideology. It is this that combined with other
factors to make the PDP the most successful and therefore dominant party of the
fourth republic.
Nevertheless
the conditions that combined to make the PDP the dominant and most successful
party have been changing over the last six years, and in the last two years in
particular the changes have been such as to qualify to be termed a seismic
shift.
I will come
back to this seismic shift shortly. But before then, a few other equally
significant characterization of the political parties of the fourth republic;
the overwhelming majority of the parties, and the most significant and
successful ones are infact non-membership based parties. By this I mean the
phenomenon where ordinary citizens are recruited and registered into the
parties not as self- conscious active members, but as supporters of party
lords; So party members play no significant role in the life of the party other
than to attend rallies, to terrorise opponents, and to be selected as paid
party delegates during party primaries and or conventions. So in essence we
have political party members who have absolutely no idea what the party stands
for, much less what the party’s programs are. Their loyalty is to the
recruiting party lord, not to any party principles or programs.
This
situation creates the context for the lack or near absence of internal party
democracy, and it is responsible for the resultant situation and evolution of
the phenomenon of a democracy without democrats.
Now let us
get back to the seismic shift that has been taking place in the political party
landscape. In the last two years, the PDP seems to have lost the grand
consensus that held it together so much so that the internal intensified and
devastatingly mutually antagonistic factional contestation within it has
precipitated an implosion of the party that has aggravated the attrition and
hollowing out of the party.
The most
significant beneficiary of this internal attrition and implosion of the PDP has
been the emergent single opposition party, the APC.
The
emergence of the APC through the merger of three and a half significant smaller
opposition parties, and the fusion with this mix of major blocs from the
disintegrating PDP has combined to recreate the APC as truly and indeed the New
PDP.
What I mean
by this is that as result of the implosion of the PDP, the coming together of
the main opposition party into a single large and national opposition party, as
well as the absorption by this new emergent national opposition party of the power
blocs retreating from the PDP, the APC has managed to transform itself into the
party with the greatest assemblage of power blocs and factional interest groups
of the ruling class; a position hitherto held by the PDP.
This was the
situation with respect to the relative potential and capacity of the two main
parties, the ruling PDP and the opposition APC going into their respective
party congresses, primaries and conventions.
Furthermore
an analysis of the party congresses and primaries clearly indicate that the two
parties have fared differently and emerged differently from these processes.
The PDP has
emerged from its party primaries the most bruised, and the most bedeviled with
conflict, again confirming the continuing process of the unraveling of the
consensus that was responsible for the success of the party, and the further
cataclysmic unraveling of the party edifice itself.
The APC on
the other hand has emerged from its own primaries and congresses with the least
internal dissent and fission. Furthermore it has been, and is poised to become
potentially the most significant beneficiary of the further disintegration of
the ruling party.
It must be
noted that the PDP that went into the party primaries was already a very
weakened PDP, certainly a shadow of the PDP that went into the party primaries
preceding the 2011 general elections. Nevertheless this weakened PDP managed to
emerge from its party primaries as an even more diminished PDP than the
weakened one that went into the primaries.
On the other
hand the APC seemed to have emerged from its own primaries even bigger and
larger as an assemblage of ruling class power blocs and factional interest
groups, and therefore even stronger.
The APC that
emerged from its primaries, and that has gained and is still gaining from the
further hemorrhaging of the PDP as a result of very relatively disastrous party
primary outing, has become the mirror image of the PDP at the height of its
dominance, in the first 12 years of the fourth republic.
It is in this sense that this emergent APC is
truly the New PDP, and particularly given the reality of the absence of any
significant difference in the very nature, character and fundamental interests
and direction of the parties.
So if the
conditions were to remain the same until the general elections; of if the
seismic shify in geo-political and ethno-religious re-alignment of ruling class
forces and formations were to continue to evolve in favour of the APC until
February; If the general elections were to be held under the conditions
outlined above, it will amount to a miracle indeed, and will very likely
require an outright brazen electoral fraud for the PDP to retain its dominance
in the aftermath of the general elections.
If the power
blocs and factional interests now re-aligned and co-herring around the APC were
to deliver their bloc votes or the majority of their bloc votes, then it is
very likely that the February 2015 general elections will merely confirm in
electoral terms, the seismic shift in political re-alignment within the ruling
class: an APC majority at both Federal and state levels, and at both executive
and legislative levels.
This kind of
potential outcome could have been a forgone conclusion in a context where real
issues play very decisive role in electoral outcomes. In such a context, even
if ordinary citizens have no illusions in the opposition, as the case certainly
is in our situation, a protest vote to oust the ruling party, blamed for
aggravated governance failure would still have brought into power even a
distrusted opposition party.
Now what
will this potential outcome mean for ordinary citizens? I am afraid this is a
very, and significantly different matter.
I have
absolutely no illusions in either the opposition Party or its candidates. In
fact as far as I know and as far as historical facts reveal, the difference
between the PDP and the APC is in reality one between ‘six’ and ‘half a
dozens’. It can be argued however that at the superficial level, ‘six’ has only
3 letters, while ‘Half a dozen’ has 10 letters, in which case half a dozen
[PDP] is longer and occupies more space than six [APC].
Finally, it
is important to state again, that if the APC because it has displaced the PDP
as the largest assemblage or allied ruling class power blocs were to defeat the
PDP in the February General election, it will represent not just a political,
but also an historical seismic shift; the first time in our post flag
independence history that a ruling party will be defeated and supplanted at the
Federal level.
An
opposition victory will mark a significant milestone, but it will also lead to
a groundswell of expectations, and given the core sameness and identity of the
opposition party with the ruling party that it would have displaced, also
eventually a crisis of unmet and unrealized expectations.
The only
potentially positive outcome of this permanent crisis of ruling class mis-rule
will be a renewed and restored popular confidence in the ability of ordinary
citizens to change the Federal Government through elections, and thus the very
clear and distinct possibility that a non-performing elected opposition
government will soon run into very intense credibility crisis, and in a context
where ordinary citizens are confident that they can change the government.
Let me now
conclude by restating that this analysis is based on the present alliance of
intra-class forces, and that it does not preclude other outcomes including the
overturning of the present constitutional order.
The
potential for this particular option, which includes a spectrum from a
successful uprising to an hijacked uprising, will be heightened and solely
dependent on the actions and reactions of ruling class power blocs within the
declining ruling party and the ascending opposition party, and in particular
whether the contestation between them becomes more or less mutually
antagonistic, and more or less capable of undermining the stability and
functioning of the current political and constitutional order.
(Gaskia is National Coordinator of
Protest To Power Movement [P2PM] and Co-convener of the Say No Campaign)
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