Election, liberal democracy and national security

• Published date: 24 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

Elections are critical aspects of the democratic framework for governing modern political societies. They serve as instrument of political choice, mobilization and accountability. In the context of liberal democracy that has become the most popular form of democracy in a unipolar world, elections are to facilitate the smooth transition from one civilian administration to the other and help in legitimizing sitting governments.

In a democratic system where elections are devoid of crisis, long term disputes or political violence, are amicably resolved. Such system enhances the prospect for political stability, peace, development and continuity in governance. But where elections are characterized by violence, thuggery, intimidation, rigging, ballot box snatching and stuffing and other forms of electoral malpractices, they bring to question the very essence of democracy and compromise the nation's security.

The Nigerian experience with general elections has shown that the political elite have not fully come to terms with the import of elections for democratic sustenance and national security. More often than not, the elite have failed to play by the rules of competitive electoral politics which prioritizes politics of tolerance, conflict and consensus, bargaining and compromise. They see elections as warfare, characterized by gangsterism and political disorder. Political parties which organize for elections are also, like armband of men and women going to war, where there must be victors and the vanquished. Elections have become warfare, where it is a sin to lose. This dominant pattern of elections and electioneering threatens to tear the nation apart and put its tenuous peace at great risks.

It is accepted that democracy has some universal values such as, freedom, liberty, civil and political rights, free press, respect for the rule of law and constitutionalism. Yet, democracy may mean little to a people that are hungry: poverty stricken, unemployed and illiterate. Votes can only be meaningful in the hands of those who know their meanings and relevance. Environmental and other abuses are going on in the midst of poverty, thereby depriving the people of access to life sustaining resources.

Yet, the state in Africa remains salient in spite of, efforts to roll it back. It controls greater part of the people's life, appropriating to all intent and purposes, much power and resources to itself. Given its attractiveness to the elite as a source of wealth accumulation...