Compass Elections: Early 2023 Roundup
Map of presidential candidate performance by state. The eventual winner, Bola Tinubu of the APC, is displayed in blue. Yet perhaps the most surprising result was the success of Peter Obi of the LP (red) in Lagos, Nigeria's most populous city on the south-western coast.
CONCERNS RAISED FOLLOWING CONTENTIOUS ELECTION IN THE 'GIANT OF AFRICA'
NIGERIA, GENERAL - FEB 25
By Patrick Clapsaddle
General elections in the West African nation of Nigeria concluded to elect a new president and members of the legislature. The process piqued the interest of many international observers following a years-long pattern of election contention and political upheaval within the continent’s most populous country, a process which began following the end of military rule in 1999. Yet in these most-recent elections, record-low voter turnout and concerns about a lack of integrity have overshadowed optimism for the young democracy.
Current President Muhammadu Buhari, first elected in 2015, of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) was ineligible to run due to term limits following his reelection in 2019. The lack of formal proceedings for nominating a candidate led the APC to informally nominate Bola Tinubu, former Governor of Lagos State, in June 2022.
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the other major player in the nation’s two-party system, also lacked formal candidate nomination procedures, and thus selected Atiku Abubakar, who was Vice President from 1999-2007 and the PDP’s 2019 presidential candidate.
Despite the APC and PDP dominating Nigerian politics in recent history, two notable parties also offered candidates for president; the Labour Party (LP) and New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP).
Former Governor of Anambra State Peter Obi, after defecting from the PDP to the LP in early 2022, was nominated unopposed for LP candidate in May 2022. Obi’s popularity among Nigeria’s urban elite complicated the race in major population centers led by the APC or PDP. The NNPP, on the other hand, nominated Rabiu Kwankwaso who, despite being a relatively minor candidate, had potential to split the vote and affect the overall result due to his popularity in parts of the North.
Aside from the three frontrunners and Kwankwaso, 14 other candidates ran for president either as minor-party or independent candidates.
The process for electing a president in Nigeria follows a unique two-round system. In order to be elected in the first round, a candidate must win a plurality provided they receive over 25% of votes in at least two-thirds of the nation’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Abuja. If no candidate achieves this, a second round between the top candidate and the next candidate to have received a plurality in the most states is held 21 days later.
APC candidate Bola Tinubu, having carried 12 out of 36 states and 36.61% of the popular vote, was declared the winner early in the morning of March 1. The PDP’s Abubakar came in second place, carrying another 12 states and garnering 29.07% of the popular vote. More surprisingly, LP candidate Peter Obi was able to obtain just over a quarter of the popular vote (25.40%), winning 11 states and the FCT. Kwankwaso and the NNPP lagged behind, finishing with about 6.4% of the vote and winning one state.
The 109 members of the Nigerian Senate, meanwhile, are elected via first-past-the-post voting from single-seat constituencies — three for each state and one for the FCT. Members of the House of Representatives are elected by the same method from 360 single-member constituencies.
National Assembly results won’t be finalized until the electoral commission releases the full results sometime in the near future. However, the APC is projected to win a majority of 54 seats in the Senate, with the PDP and LP winning 33 and 7 seats respectively. The March 11 state elections will determine the makeup of the House of Representatives, with many expecting the APC to retain their majority.
Although Tinubu was generally favored to win the presidency throughout the process, the election was not without its upsets, most notably Obi’s victory in Lagos — Nigeria’s largest city and an APC stronghold. With Tinubu’s status as former Lagos State Governor and the APC dominating politics in the region for years, Obi’s win came as a shock and testament to the power of young Nigerians. Making up a third of the nation’s voting population, young people expressed great dissatisfaction with the two-party system and the nation’s direction in general. Tinubu, however, said he was bound to the results regardless.
“People have a right to vote for the candidate of their choice,” his campaign team said in a statement released following the result.
Although Obi’s win in Lagos was groundbreaking in terms of local political precedent, it did little to sway the results nationwide. Obi’s only other major victory came from his heartland Enugu State in the nation’s east.
This year’s election also marked the first instance of the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) use of an electronic reporting system to tally votes. Workers at the roughly 176,000 polling stations across the country counted votes and reported them digitally to INEC headquarters in Abuja. Officers from each state then traveled to the capital with tally sheets, where results were cross-referenced for accuracy.
The new electronic system has continued to receive backlash, especially from the PDP and LP; a representative of the former described the electoral process as fraudulent, while the latter asked for announcements to be suspended or the election to be rerun. Tinubu and the APC, however, insisted that all parties take any grievances to courts and renounce violence over the results.
Citizens and election observers alike expressed dismay with the chaos and disarray that plagued Nigeria’s electoral processes. Non-profit civic group Yiaga Africa deployed nearly 4,000 election observers and communicated general dissatisfaction.
“There were once again significant logistics challenges which delayed openings of polls across the country. Once again INEC has fallen short of its expectations,” Yiaga said in a tweet on Feb. 26.
Following reports of voter intimidation and suppression, military forces intervened violently at various polling locations. In addition, the slow uploading of results on the INEC website fostered concerns about fraud. On top of logistical issues, sporadic violence erupted and led to injuries.
Challenges from the opposition continue, as do international concerns about the credibility of the election. Despite the INEC’s insistence the process was free and fair, several observer groups assert otherwise, including the European Union. The US State Department released a statement congratulating Tinubu and his victory but urged the INEC to improve processes before the state elections on March 11. Nigerian democracy evidently remains a work in progress.
CZECHIA CHOOSES — DEFEAT FOR AN AUTOCRAT?
CZECHIA, PRESIDENTIAL RUNOFF - JAN 27
By Anthony Duan
As NATO debates whether to admit Sweden and Finland as its newest members, the small member state of Czechia has thrown its support behind one of the alliance’s former commanders, Petr Pavel, with the recent presidential runoff giving over 58% of the ballots cast in his favor.
Under Czechia’s parliamentary system, the government is headed by a Prime Minister who is appointed by the President, giving this election some limited, and mostly symbolic, significance. Pavel’s opponent in the presidential race, former Prime Minister Andrej Babis, had been accused of oligarchic behavior and misdeeds ranging from financial misconduct to nepotism, making a stark contrast with Pavel, whom is seen as a successor to the first Czech President, passionately pro-democracy Vaclav Havel, who led the 1989 revolution against communism. With chants of “Pavel to the Castle” replicating those of “Havel to the Castle” over three decades ago, it has become apparent that amid a campaign marred by a false allegation of his own death, the military man Pavel has become the vanguard of the nation’s anti-authoritarian movement.
For his part, Babis had done a terrible job finding supporters; though he had been born in neighboring Slovakia, Slovak President Zuzana Caputova had made clear her embrace of General Pavel, whose anti-populist streak she shares. President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has taken a similar stance, applauding Pavel for his “strong commitment to European values.” As the BBC reports, Pavel was successfully portrayed as democracy’s defender, though to Babis’s credit, the ex-premier congratulated his opponent after his loss and has condemned the deluge of misinformation.
The two differed sharply over the war in Ukraine, however; while Pavel stood firmly behind NATO and further military aid to Ukraine, Babis faced criticism after his declaration that “in no situation would [he] send [Czech] children to war.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani have been quick to congratulate the President-elect, further underlining his commitment to the Western cause. As a point of comparison, this election heralds a pro-Western turn in a break from another former Prime Minister-turned-President, Milos Zeman, who had endorsed Babis as his successor. Zeman, as Euronews notes, was fond of the saying that “only an idiot doesn’t change his views,” and even penned a book titled “How I Made Mistakes in Politics.” Unsurprisingly, the man who the South China Morning Post mocked as a chain-smoker who consumed nine alcoholic drinks per day made for quite the controversial head of state.
Though his expulsion from the once-ruling Communist Party over his support of the Prague Spring attests to a certain degree of pro-Ukrainian sympathy, Zeman’s formerly pro-Russian and pro-Chinese stance gives reason for suspicion. And of course, his comment to Putin himself that “journalists should be liquidated,” his anti-Muslim rhetoric, his description of the War in Donbass as a Ukrainian civil conflict and his domestic controversies of blocking judicial appointments do not sound like the words of a freedom fighter. Yet in true Zeman fashion, he admitted to having been wrong and pivoted to deriding Putin as a madman — a perhaps-unsurprising turn for a man who went from supporting a closer European Union in 2013 to supporting Czechia’s exit in 2015.
Returning to Pavel’s victory, the election results also symbolize the victory of an anti-establishment attitude in Czech politics; the retired general has never run for office in his life, contrasting with the dominant-for-a-decade Babis who has made ample use of his many opportunities to make allies and enemies. Triumphantly declaring that “truth, dignity, respect and humility won,” the new leader’s nonpartisan and socially liberal platform of switching to the euro and legalizing same-sex marriage hopes to herald an era of progress, as emphasized by the comment from 60-year-old voter Abdulai Diop to Reuters that “the young generation has a future with him.” Babis’s accusations that Pavel represented warmongering were apparently not heeded.
It would also be wrong to neglect the very real possibility that Babis could have won; in the first round, only 0.4% of votes separated the two, as opposed to 16% in the runoff. With Babis portraying the election as a referendum on his time as Prime Minister from 2017-2021 and decrying the rising cost of living under current Prime Minister Petr Fiala, he had achievements to point to — even if they had to be counterbalanced with his legal problems, specifically fraud charges worth 2 million euros (Remember, as foreign journalists have made no effort to deemphasize, Babis is a billionaire!). But if anything, Pavel has shown that the tide of populism can not only be slowed, but beaten back, a herald of defeat to nationalist businessmen that court the support of the far-right.
ECUADOR REFERENDUM FAILURE SIGNALS ERODING CONFIDENCE IN PRESIDENT LASSO
ECUADOR, REFERENDUM - FEBRUARY 5
By Brendan Carroll
Ecuador’s recent referendum elections show signs of a progressive comeback in the country, after efforts by conservatives to win back some support and enact reform. Conservative President Guillermo Lasso proposed eight reforms to alter Ecuador’s constitution, on the grounds that the changes would combat the growing problems of crime, inflation, and inefficient bureaucracy. The rejection of these proposals by the electorate displays a lack of confidence in President Lasso and his government. With local elections also boasting large wins for the progressive Citizen Revolution Movement (RC), February’s results may signal the beginning of the end for Lasso ahead of the 2025 general elections.
Ecuador is currently facing some of its worst challenges of the decade so far. In 2022, Ecuador maintained a homicide rate of 19.6% per 100,000, the largest level in seven years. Drug trafficking and drug-related offenses pervade the country, while violent crimes and robberies only seemed to grow following the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020.
Lasso’s eight proposed reforms in the election ranged from changes in criminal justice practices to major government restructuring. For example, Lasso proposed an allowance for extraditing drug traffickers to countries like the United States. Lasso claimed the measure would mitigate drug-related crimes. Another proposal set a minimum membership requirement for groups to become a political movement, and perhaps the most bold proposal of all was to shrink the legislative branch from 130-150 seats to 100. Lasso and his allies argued that the reforms would allow greater efficiency and action on key domestic issues.
However, many citizens and opponents criticized these reforms as self-interested and only capable of short-term change. Lasso and the unicameral National Assembly have repeatedly clashed during his tenure, so the seat limit reads as a blatant attempt to shore up his own power. Additionally, citizens criticized the drug extradition proposal as a superficial attempt to send the problem elsewhere rather than getting to the root of drug crimes.
At the polls, citizens put their discontent to use by voting at record levels. Over 10 million Ecuadorians turned out to vote on the eight referenda, encompassing roughly 81% of the electorate. Every single proposal failed. 53% of voters said “no” to the proposal to shrink the legislature, 52% rejected the extradition proposal, and 55% denied the political organization requirements.
While voters held legitimate criticisms for each proposal, the resounding rejection signifies a greater dissatisfaction with Lasso. The President’s approval rating already sits at 30% according to a 2022 poll, and the referendum results only further spell out his unpopularity.
Yet Lasso’s losses were not the only key results in February’s elections: Ecuador also held its local elections in February, with mayoral and councilor positions up for grabs in key regions. The progressive RC won nine of twenty-three governmental prefectures overall, three in Ecuador’s largest provinces. Lasso’s Creating Opportunities party won none, with other conservative parties like the Social Christians only boasting a handful of winners.
In addition, the RC won 61 mayoral seats. Not only are these the most seats won by any party, but many of the victories are also in key regions. RC mayor-elect Aquiles Alvarez will be Guayaquil’s first mayor not from the right-wing in almost three decades. The capital city of Quito also chose RC candidate Pablo Muñoz for mayor.
The RC's victory in the recent elections is a testament to the resilience of the party and its supporters. Facing opposition and suppression, the people of Ecuador demonstrated that they align with the RC. Former President Correa leads the party from Belgium, where he remains in refuge due to a corruption charge. Even with the party’s figurehead hiding out abroad, the RC consolidated voters to amass major victories across the board.
While Lasso stated following the polls that he would remain committed to fighting crime and resolving insecurity, it may not be enough to sway the people. Ecuadorians are not voting on their president any time soon. However, if Lasso does not swiftly start following through on his promises, the RC may repeat its substantial victories again come 2025.
BUILD BACK BETTER? BRING BACK BOVINES!
NETHERLANDS, PROVINCIAL - MAR 15
By Anthony Duan
As nations throughout the Western World plan their strategies against climate change, a thorn has appeared in the side of center-right Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s nitrogen-reduction policies: The Farmer-Citizen Movement, or BBB in Dutch, an agrarian protest party that has taken first place in the country’s provincial elections, held on March 15. With the four-term premier’s approval rating dropping to 20% recently, this result may be the start of the end for his administration.
The party’s dominant purpose in its short four years of life has been to oppose Rutte’s “unrealistic” plan of cutting nitrogen emissions in half by 2030, which would require a massive reduction in the country’s use of livestock and fertilizers. Around the city of Gouda, for instance, where 1.6 million cows produce waste in their age-old labor, nitrogen production is four times the European average, raising the risk of an acidified ground where trees, fungi, and even sea animals cannot survive.
To reach the emissions goal, however, thousands of farms must be shuttered, a seeming threat to many rural voters’ livelihoods. According to the BBB, a number of farms have already been forced to shut down and food production has fallen, leading protestors to take drastic measures. France 24 describes a pre-election scene where tractors formed a blockade around a debate site, while earlier protests involved the burning of hay and (in a fitting symbol of disgust) manure, while the nation’s tricolor flag was often hung upside down in a signal of distress for a possibly-disappearing way of life.
This is no fringe cause in the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter, ranking behind only the United States; according to exit polls, the party’s heartland province of Overijssel reported 31% of votes going towards the party. Even in urban North Holland, home to cosmopolitan Amsterdam, over one-seventh of voters marked the Movement on their ballots — an affirmation of the New York Times's remark that suburban voters too affirmed the BBB’s message of tradition over “elites.” Voter Ben Apeldoorn has, in true populist fashion, described the result as a “victory of the common man,” though even he has described the party’s meteoric rise as a “pleasant surprise.” With an unusually high 57.5% of voters casting ballots, perhaps Apeldoorn is right that there is some victory for democracy writ large.
While the courts, citing EU law, have taken the side of environmentalists, the party continues to argue that the burden has unfairly fallen upon cultivators, although with building permits heavily restricted as well, leading to a housing crisis, they may easily find support from non-agricultural Hollanders. As it stands, the party’s leader, Caroline van der Plas, has declared that the results are “about citizens who are not seen, not heard, not taken seriously.” Nonetheless, aware of her party’s controversial stance, she has affirmed its care for nature and refused to rule out any coalition in the hope that her cause may see the light of day (another populist party, the pro-housing and anti-immigrant Party for Freedom, is set for a less notable bounceback).
The 12 provincial legislatures — all of which the BBB now holds a plurality in — elect the country’s Senate, without whose approval Holland’s House of Representatives cannot pass legislation. The BBB’s projected 15 (or more) Senate seats out of 75 will thus prove a challenge to Prime Minister Rutte’s goal of maintaining control of the body with his agenda intact. Yet the alliance between the center-left Labour and GreenLeft parties also looks set to elect 15 senators combined. They may negotiate with Rutte’s administration to keep the moderates in power. Given their obvious environmental inclination, such as a demand that all coal-fired power stations be closed within two years, trouble for Rutte should not necessarily be seen as a victory for the BBB. While van der Plas has her supporters, she has also made enemies; two decades ago, populist leader Pim Fortuyn was assassinated, and threats have been made to deliver her the same fate.
However, the far-right Forum for Democracy, another populist firebrand born in 2016, witnessed a meteoric rise in 2019 to 15% but slumped to 3% in this ballot. The pro-Putin party opposed immigration (perhaps less likely a cause for the half-Irish van der Plas) and the EU; the future of the BBB, which according to Deutsche Welle has gained the support of right-wing populists such as Donald Trump, is therefore not certain. It may simply be a successor to another bloc of the same vein, though it appears to be more moderate than the Forum, whose extreme nature has led it to suffer from splits and, in line with their inability to actually contribute to the legislative process, absenteeism. To say they proved a permanent stumbling block for Rutte would simply be inaccurate.
The four-party ruling coalition, composed of Rutte’s VVD, the liberal Democrats ‘66, and two Christian conservative parties, has fallen to 24 seats, but it does not hold a majority in the outgoing Senate either, with 32 of 75 senators loyal. Perhaps Rutte will stay in power by making some new deals, or perhaps this time his luck will run out. According to the Minister for Nature (and Nitrogen!) Christianne van der Waal, “there’s no choice.” Whether she means no choice for Rutte to stay or no choice for the BBB to succeed, someone has got to give, and nobody seems in the least willing to.
Neither the Europeanist institutions who think of progress and an optimistic future, nor the forces that propelled to victory the widowed van der Plas, whose humble supporters see her as their latest hope to defend their way of life, seem to be going away soon.