Why President Jonathan may get re-election

[Mirror]

The desire of every elected president is to complete the first term (un)successfully and get a re-election for the next term. Most leaders do not sleep in their quest for re-election. They usually "win" such elections. Mugabe, Mubarak, Kibaki, OBJ, Museveni, Eyadema, Kabila, late Chavez, to mention just few, are archetypal of such re-election jubilants. They win by "force", "fire" or simply by popular acceptance. Those that win by "fire" do not mind to describe their elections as "do or die" affair.

President Jonathan was not an apostle of re-election until in the last one year when indications began to show that he would not mind to have a piece of the "apple pie" of another term. When he "signed" the "no re-election" pact with northern governors, he was praised to the high heavens as another "gentleman president" who is not thirsting after the lust and lucre of power. He enjoyed wide publicity for being a man of simplicity and integrity, the first truly "academic" president, a jolly good fellow with a "large good heart".

But all that seems now to be a falsetto. Jonathan wants and seems to desperately seek another term of four years. President Jonathan had shown the signs of reneging on his promise early in his tenure when debates about one term of six or five years came up. Like the wind, it blew wide and wild but put a question mark against Mr. President's avowed integrity. Developments after the initial debates however showed that a one term of more than four years was not going to fly, which compelled Jonathan to come out of his cocoon and show his real self.

'Second term" thus became more advertized than the fight against corruption or insurgency. In-between Boko Haram decisive strikes, the question of "second term" would always arise. Then shortly after, problems reared their very ugly heads and the President would seem not to mind whose ox was gored, as long as he doesn't fall off it. PDP Chairmanship tussle, PDP Board of Trustees leadership crisis; Nigerian Governors' Forum leadership tussle; Jonathan-Amaechi's personality face-off; emergence of splinter units of PDP; and the outflow of PDP members to the newly formed arch-rival, APC.

Jonathan has been, overtly or covertly, the architect of most of these problems. The focus on 2015 and the threat of not making it, have gored the presidency to seemingly go too far to press home its demands. The dimension of the problem now is that the president is caught between national leadership and personal interest.

Having examined the backgrounds, these are the reasons I am compelled to believe will work against Jonathan and crash his re-election hopes:

• The factionalization of the PDP is a tall order for Jonathan. This is not the time to create or deepen the holes in the party. We have had a leadership tussle at the top and in the rank and file. There have been all sorts of parallels. The emergence of parallel PDP, despite the alleged resolutions and concessions by the presidency in the course of last week, will not heal the wounds. If it does, the scar will remain indelible up to 2015.

• The Amaechi dimension is particularly dangerous. The face-off with a serving similarly democratically elected governor of a state is enough bad signal that the president has lost considerable amount of respect in the comity of governors. Governors play a major role in presidential elections. The fight against the governor of a major Niger Delta State is worse for any Ijaw President. The governor has his own large crowd and will have a lot of sentiments on his side in the creeks and oil cities. Now the solidarity of fellow governors who feel aggrieved with the president for humiliating one of them will not only lead to the factionalization of the NGF, as it has done, but will also lead to the break-away to align with the new PDP as it has been for a while. Aside such schisms are also such phony but problematic political actors such as the Northern Governors' Forum, Progressive Governors' Forum, and now PDP Governors' Forum. • Jonathan's intransigence continues with the mysterious and unfathomable sack of selected ministers. The incident was not only too sudden; it was also coming on the wake of the deepening PDP crisis, which has fuelled speculations that the presidency was getting at its adversaries in the new PDP. The ministers were alleged to have been either nominees of some members of the breakaway faction or their sympathizers. This hurried and not-well-thought-out act may spell doom for Jonathan's popularity from: where the sacked ministers come from; their loyalists in the PDP; and their sympathizers. The act may also turn more people against the President without his suspecting it.

• Also is President's Jonathan's choice of turning against Presidents Obasanjo and Babangida, two party stalwarts and no doubt the most powerful individuals in the country. He had visibly poked IBB in the nose in the past, for which the smiling General may have not forgiven him; and he has in recent times, stepped on OBJ's toes jettisoning the cunning former President's counsel on governance and how to manage PDP. Such cantankerous disposition will certainly work against the President in 2015 or even earlier.

• The emergence of the APC is going to be PDP's Achilles' hill in 2015. The calibre of trouble makers and PDP dream-killers in that party will cause trouble for Jonathan, if he gets to and scales through at the PDP primaries to become presidential flag-bearer. APC will clobber the PDP if the crisis in the ruling party persists or if the wound scar fails to heal before then.

• The poor anti-corruption record is President's number one opposition party. Several of his ministers have been alleged to be among the oil and subsidy thieves; yet Mr. President has not budged but has only sacked such dynamic ministers as that of Foreign Affairs, Gbenga Ashiru. Aside corruption, bad governance in the education and health sectors are also going to count against him. Academic staff are currently on strike, the third time they will be on such indefinite strike under Jonathan, himself a former academic staff. the academia is a huge and increasingly politically active constituency that any sensible politician must carry along. Without them, such person has lost priceless votes.

• Lastly, the mismanagement of national security will tell against Jonathan's re-election. As long as the Boko Haram killings, as well as the kidnappings and general state of disorder continue, Mr. Jonathan can as well bid the State House bye for good.

The aforementioned can get President Jonathan out of Aso Rock by 2015. But there is only one way out. The panacea is a threeword sentence that can earn him the ticket to return to the seat of power: FIX THINGS NOW!

•Dr. Folarin is the Head of Department of Political Science and International Relations at Covenant University, Ota, Nigeria.

Source: Why President Jonathan may get re-election

[Folami David]

Whether he would get any re-election or not should be kept aside for now because the time for that is not now. Let's focus on the present!