by Ini Ekott

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/ArtsandCulture/x2/XFactor/Features/5690842-147/story.csp

April 19, 2011 01:10AM
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International observers have applauded the conduct of Saturday's presidential election but have cited several areas that need to be improved upon ahead of the governorship polls next week.


The Commonwealth, National Democratic Institute (NDI), European Union (EU) and the International Republican Institute issued separate post-election assessments yesterday amid reports of violent protest against the outcome of the election in Kano, Kaduna and Bauchi states.

The Commonwealth mission said the April 2011 elections marked a "genuine celebration of democracy" in Nigeria saying that previous notions that the nation can only hold flawed elections be discarded.

Mr Mogae admitted that the parliamentary polls had procedural problems although there were improvements. Asked whether he would advise Nigerians to accept the outcome of the polls, he said: "I say yes," adding that the imperfections noticed do not point to deliberate "mischief." The NDI said its observation unveiled the inadequacies of the "complicated and multi-tiered" collation process which the mission said was vulnerable to human error and manipulation as tabulation proceeds from the polling unit to the electoral office.

As the statements were read on Monday in Abuja, fears mounted about the breakdown of law and order in the Federal Capital Territory as clashes erupted in Dutse, Mararaba areas of the Federal Capital Territory with no certain number of casualties.

Already, the NDI led by the former Canadian Prime Minister, Joe Clark, said its coverage of the pre-election and the election days, showed there have been 135 politically-motivated deaths.

The election monitoring teams condemned the renewed unrest yesterday urging aggrieved candidates in the polls to seek judicial redress.

"Any post election violence will be regrettable," said Festus Mogae, the chief observer of the Commonwealth team and former president of Botswana. "If it is happening, it is regrettable."

Assessment

The monitors praised the poll on the one hand and on the other, criticised series of processes from the accreditation to counting of results although they agree the setbacks were minimal to affect the wider result for the entire nation.

The teams complained about overcrowded polling stations despite claims by the Independent National Electoral Commission that sub voting units will be established for centres beyond 300 voters.

The EU team observed that for 633 random polling units it monitored across the 36 states, only 14% were split as INEC directed with the rest having an average 860 voters.

Attempts to induce voters were noticed in 17 percent, while party agents interfered in 26%. In spite of these, counting was overall evaluated positively in 91%, it said