The Young Democratic Party (YDP) has kicked against moves by the National Assembly to reduce the number of political parties to five through an amendment of the Electoral Act.
The chairman of the Young Democratic Party, Architect Ezekiel Nya-Etok, who stated this in Abuja, Monday, said it has both legal and anti-democratic implications.
There are currently 93 registered political parties in Nigeria, but only about 73 participated in the last general elections.
According to him, instead of de-registration of parties, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should put measures in place to ensure only serious and credible political parties appear on the ballot.
“For legal considerations and for the good of democracy it might not be wise to de-register political parties.
“However, INEC can introduce measures that ensure that only serious parties are on the ballot. I therefore propose that 20 parties be screened to be on the ballot through the following process: Every party will be mandated and obligated to have a register of membership in three categories: active, active and nominal members.
“INEC should provide a platform where these members with PVCs synchronize with the INEC platform to ensure that no person registers with two parties, as the registration will carry the PVC details of the party members and such PVCs can only be registered to one party.
“These members in category A will form the delegates at primaries. By this method, direct primaries will become the accepted primaries for selection of candidates while any indirect primaries will be strictly based on requests to INEC and approval on peculiar circumstances. By this, parties will be compelled to undergo active membership drive.”
He said 18 months to general elections all registered voters from all the political parties would indicate their preferred parties for the ballot.
“This exercise will be limited strictly to party members and not the general public as INEC would already have such people on their portal.
“The top 20 parties will be the parties that will be allowed to field candidates for the elections while others continue on membership drive so as to qualify in the next election cycle. If a party is unable to come among the top 20, putting them on the ballot is unwise.”
He said only competent candidates on the ballot should engage in compulsory, mandatory, and obligatory for presidential and governorship debates.
“To have all 20 parties at the presidential or governorship debates will be ineffective. INEC will, therefore, have a second round of ballot for the top 10 parties in the format of the previous but this time it will be open all registered voters.
“This will mark the beginning of electing competent leaders as no party will field a candidate that will disgrace the party at the public debates. There will be strict sanctions for failing to show up in less than two of possible three debates.”
