Nigéria : Eleições adiadas para 28 de Março

Faced with extraordinary pressure from the Nigerian military, Nigeria’s election commission has announced a six-week delay in the presidential election, revealing that the army was refusing to provide security for the election unless it was delayed. The crucial election, in which President Goodluck Jonathan was locked in a tight race with opposition rival Muhammadu Buhari, was scheduled for Feb. 14. But at a late-night press conference in Abuja on Saturday night, just a week before the vote, the commission said the election will be postponed to March 28. Mr. Buhari and his opposition party, convinced they will win the election, have been strongly resisting the idea of a delay. Civil society groups and human rights activists were also opposed to a postponement. But they were trumped by the Nigerian military, which refused to provide security for the election if it was held on Feb. 14 as scheduled. The delay is a major boost for Mr. Jonathan, who has far more financial resources than Mr. Buhari and can use the extra six weeks to further outspend his opponent on campaign advertisements and to forge deals with key regional power-brokers who could swing the election to him. The official reason for the delay seemed odd and difficult to understand. The Nigerian military and other security forces, which have been fighting the Boko Haram insurgency for the past six years with little success, announced bluntly that they cannot provide security for the Feb. 14 election because they will be “concentrating” on a military operation against Boko Haram. This operation will take “at least six weeks,” according to Mr. Jega’s summary of what he was told by the security chiefs. “The security agencies reiterated that they will be concentrating their attention to the insurgency and may not be able to play its traditional role in providing security during the elections,” said Attahiru Jega, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, in his late-night announcement. “The advice by the security chiefs is that it will be impossible to secure elections while a military operation is going on,” he said. “The security agencies have told us that they can restore normalcy within six weeks. I hope that we should keep hope alive.” With the military refusing to provide security for the voting process on Feb. 14, it would have been “unconscionable” to send election personnel and voters to the voting stations, Mr. Jega said. Reaction from ordinary Nigerians was skeptical. On social media, Nigerians questioned why the military would suddenly announce a military operation against Boko Haram to coincide with the scheduled election date. And they expressed doubt that the military could suddenly defeat Boko Haram in six weeks, after failing to defeat the Islamist radical militia for the past six years. Mr. Jega insisted that his electoral commission was “substantially ready” for a Feb. 14 election, but he admitted that some factors such as security were beyond his control. For weeks, the election commission has been insisting that it is prepared for a Feb. 14 election and there are no grounds for a delay. But shadowy forces have been financing a campaign for a delay. Anonymous brochures, accompanied by T-shirts and caps, have appeared in the streets of Abuja, demanding a 60-day delay in the vote. The national security adviser, Sambo Dasuki, has also been calling for a delay. The main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, said the election delay was “clearly a major setback for Nigerian democracy.” It said the party was meeting in an emergency session to study the implications of the delay. The delay was “highly provocative” but Nigerians should “remain calm and desist from violence” since this would be an “obvious trap” to further delay the election, the party said on Saturday night. The United States has also strongly opposed a delay in the election. On Jan. 25, during a visit to Nigeria, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry insisted that the election should be held on Feb. 14 as scheduled. But Mr. Jonathan refused to endorse the Feb. 14 date, saying instead that the “sacrosanct” day was May 29, when the new president is supposed to take office. BBC