A major challenge facing the democratic process in our country is the lack of recognition of representative democracy. It was never intended to be the equivalent of direct or pure democracy. The nation’s founding fathers viewed the latter as impracticable, undesirable and downright dangerous especially because it might threaten minority rights. Advocates often cite the purpose of representative democracy to include prevention against the emergence of demagogues and safeguard against abuse of political powers.
The concept of representation can be traced to the middle ages when parliaments were thought to represent the people. The consent of the parliament was viewed as the consent of the people as a whole. The people are not supposed to govern; they are not supposed to decide issues. They are supposed to decide who will decide. When we exercise our franchise, what we are actually doing is voting for persons within our constituencies to act or speak for us. We all cannot go to Abuja to agree on every national issue. That will be chaotic. A mass of people cannot govern.
Representative democracy is the best means of promoting liberty, happiness and national security. This means providing for the rights of the minorities as well as those of majorities. It limits the ordinary citizen’s role to the periodic election of leaders; who almost always represent and defend citizens’ interest more than the citizens can themselves. A leader should not be a tool of the mob but offers guidance.
Clearly, representative democracy is a process by which the people and their representatives discuss, compromise and arrive at decision only after thoughtful consideration.
Robert Michel’s iron law of oligarchy states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be on the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. It asserts that rule by the elite or oligarchy, is inevitable as an iron law within any democratic organization as part of the tactical and technical necessitates of organizations. Since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy, power within an organization will always get delegated to few individuals within that group, elected or otherwise. He addressed the application of this law to representative democracy and stated; “who says organizations says oligarchy”.
According to him, the fundamental sociological law of political parties is as follows: it is the organization that gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors, of the mandatories over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. The oligarchy, if not corrupt, rules with best intentions, but it is the logic of organization itself that perverts their original intentions in what has become known as goal displacement.
Nigeria is on the move again to elect candidates for 2023 general elections Recently the National Assembly passed a bill that political parties should adopt direct primaries, the equivalent of pure democracy, to choose candidates for all elective positions and that they should be monitored by the Independent National Electoral Commission. A direct primary is one whereby members of a political party choose their party’s candidates while an indirect primary or representative democracy is one whereby party members elect delegates from among themselves who in turn decide the party’s flag bearers for upcoming elections. The Bill has been forwarded to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent.
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Some have commended the initiative while others see it as an infringement on the independence of the internal democratic working of the political parties.
We should hasten to say that no method is foolproof, and that any method can be used to subvert the will of the people. For instance, those who argue that direct primaries give every party member a say and reveals the true will of the people on the choice of candidates, downplay the advantages of representative democracy we copied from western world. It is such age-long delegatory assignment that village square meetings are all about, where representatives of every home most often the heads of families, come together to make decisions for every member of the society. So also are delegates elected by party members from the political wards. There is actually nothing less democratic about indirect primaries. What is undemocratic about indirect primaries is the insincere manner some delegates are chosen. For instance, making political appointees, who may not even be politicians, automatic delegates, tilts the number unduly to the advantage of the governor or president’s political interest. Another thing that does not commend the indirect primary option is the perceived ease to bribe the delegates considering it would cost contestants a lot more to bribe the numerous party members if they were to go direct.
However, the direct primary option is made less attractive, when grassroots party members await signals from their leaders on whom to vote for which they loyally abide to. Since with power comes the ability to reward loyalty and to control what procedures the organizations follow when making decision. So it makes no sense gathering everybody together when they are practically echoing the voice of one candidate. Even the aspirants confirm this when they visit one party godfather to another without engaging the party members directly when they are vying for the positions or when aggrieved by their loss. The party register of members is the main tool for the primaries in our country that witnesses frequent gale of defection from one political party to another, the top party members that lead these defections usually move with hundreds of their loyal supporters to their new political party. This means the party registers are altered to either delete departing members or admit new ones. This compromise on the party registers, especially when those deft political moves take place on the eve of primaries; often unfairly sways the ballot in favour of an aspirant. Another thing that has often been overlooked is the way most direct primaries hold. A party member does not want to be seen as being disloyal to his principal and so for fear, may vote against his will to be seen to align with his leader.
Another challenge is that the bill on direct primaries if signed into law by the president will adversely affect the role of political parties in determining their flag bearers in any election. A political party is defined as an organized group of people with similar political aims and opinions, that seeks to influence public policy by getting its candidates elected to public office. To perform this task, political parties have some rights and obligations guaranteed by constitution, these include freedom of organization. The parties should be allowed to choose the method that suits them best in the election of their candidates.
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