By Olu. Ibekwe (oluchukwuibekwe@gmail.com)
In the first part of this article, I examined the decision
of the last session of the Executive
Council of the African Union (AU), that only the Northern and Southern
Regional Caucuses of the Pan African
Parliament (PAP) shall be eligible to present candidates for the presidency
of the continental parliament in the upcoming bureau election
I argued that the decision was merely a reaffirmation of
existing practice within the AU as
it recalled and reaffirmed its previous decisions in 2017 and 2018 which were
based on an earlier 2016 decision as well as the May 11, 2007 PAP resolution on rotation on the basis
of which it instructed that the upcoming elections should be in line with the
principle of rotation.
In this second part, I will look at the propriety and implications
of the nomination of sole candidates for elections as president and vice
presidents, going down memory lane
It is on record that the Northern Regional Caucus
during the nomination process at the suspended election session opted not to present
candidate for president for some obvious reasons. Since the upcoming session is
a continuation of the last session, will the Northern Caucus maintain the same
position and wait for its turn, without contestation in 2024?
As we
all know, PAP was inaugurated in
March 2004 when it had its first session at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Fortunately, it has over
the years, left a trail of documentsl from which we can obtain answers to the
propriety of a sole presidential candidate vis-Ã -vis how it was handled or
resolved.
I
will straight go to the record of proceedings of the PAP for the Monday May 28th
2012 plenary of the Seventh Session when
the late former President of the Pan
African Parliament, Rt. Hon. Bethel Nnaemeka Amadi, OFR was elected as PAP President. (Adv. Zwelethu Madasa from South Africa was the Clerk of the
Parliament).
REPORT OF THE PAN-AFRICAN PARLIAMENT, SEVENTH SESSION
CLERK: Thank you Honourable
Chair of the Ad hoc Committee. So, now we are going to deal with the election
of the President only, because the ad hoc committee in terms of the rules is
going to manage the elections of the President. The Vice President’s elections will
be managed by the newly elected President. So, the explanations I am going to
give therefore relate only to the election of the President.
First, I would like to announce that I
received a withdrawal from the candidate who was standing initially for
President from the North, honourable member from Tunisia, Honourable Muhamed Chafik Zarguine. Sorry, I can’t pronounce properly, but he withdrew.
Thank you. Therefore, in this case we have only one nominee,
Honourable Bethel Amadi from the Western Caucus.
Thank you very
much. So, the procedure is going to be the following towards the election of
the President. I should say, I should preface this by saying that the rules
require election, none the less. The fact that is one nominee, it does not mean
we shall not have elections. For rules require elections. So, this is the
procedure we are going to follow.
Voting, Rule 16 (6) reads as follows:
the elections shall be by secret ballot and a simple majority of members
present and voting. I repeat, the election shall be by secret ballot and a
simple majority of members present and voting.
The next question is what is simple
majority? I will just read the definition of simple majority from rule 1.
Simple majority, from Rule 1, means the following: 50 per cent plus one.
That’s what it means according to the definition in the Rules of
Procedures. Therefore, it means that the election of the President will be
confirmed if the votes that have been counted in his favour from the total of
all the votes cast result in a simple majority. So, all the votes will be
counted, good or bad, they will be counted from that total we shall then
separate those that have expressed positively support to the President. So,
that group of votes or that lot we shall look at it against a total votes cast
if it gives us a simple majority or above then the President shall be duly
elected.
In terms of voting itself, we have a
ballot. This ballot paper has the name of the candidate for the presidency. The
Chair says, I should show you the ballot papers. I don’t know if you will
be able to see, the ballot papers here. It has only one name on it. And then
there is a small box where Honourable Members should express their choice if
they are supporting the candidate. They shall do so by putting an X mark in
that block, that will be an indication that you are voting for the candidate to
become the President.
The process; we shall start with the
front roll, here, in front of us. We shall follow that order, we will call the
front roll, and they will come and vote and so on. So, it will be rolls by
rolls. Then the votes will be deposited here, honourable members will come go
the box, put the X mark and they will come here and put their ballot paper
inside the box and go back to their seats. So, this is the procedure we are
going to follow. The Ushers are here, they will direct in terms of the first
roll, second roll and so on.
Indeed, there have been instances of
sole candidates standing for election as president not only in 2012 as in the
case of late Hon. Bethel Amadi but
also in the election of the first president of the continental parliament in
March 2004 as one of the honourable members reminded the parliamentarians on
May 28 during the debates:
HON. MEMBER: Thank you very
much Mr. Chair. Although what honourable Khumalo has said is absolutely true
and it will make life easier for us. But I would like to reiterate our practice
in Addis Ababa when we left it with the fairest President of this Parliament. I
remember there were two candidates, one of them withdrew and then we executed
an election on the only one candidate. At that time there was a legal committee
from the African Union. This means that, this represents the right practice. Let
us go on although it is tedious, it is difficult, it is tough, but let us abide
by that. Thank you very much.
Applause
It should also be noted that
during the election of the Vice Presidents, there were also withdrawals from
the race, leaving single candidates in some regions who stood for election as
sole candidates. Here again, I turn to the PAP
record of proceedings of May 28th, 2012:
THE CLERK: Hon. President,
concerning the election of the Vice-Presidents, first, I would like to make an
announcement of withdrawals.
Firstly, Hon. Sumar Highsale from
Western Sahara has withdrawn. The second withdrawal is that of Hon. Massounga
Nono from the Central Region. So, this means that we have one candidate from
the North, the Central, two from the East and two from the South. However,
owing to late withdrawals, we are unable, in one case, to delete the name.
However, now that you know that there has been this withdrawal, I hope that we
will not mislead you in the case of the Northern and the Central regions, as
they both have only one candidate each.
As far as the
procedure is concerned, as the President has said, we shall follow Rule 16. I
will start from Rule 16, which reads:
“Sub section
(6): the elections shall be by secret ballot and simple majority of
the members present and voting.”
I think we have
already dealt with this one.
“Sub section (7): where no candidate obtains a required
majority or in the event of a tie, a second ballot shall be conducted but shall
be restricted to the two candidates who obtained the highest or equal number of
votes at the previous ballot. See REPORT OF THE PAN-AFRICAN PARLIAMENT, SEVENTH SESSION (May 28th,
2012).
It
is therefore evident from the above record of proceedings that there has been
instances of sole candidates for both the
office of the president and vice president such that it will not be necessary
to attempt to create unnecessary tensions and divisions in the parliament.
Africa must prevail and PAP must
once again, return to the vision of “One
Africa, One Voice”.
And
to avoid a repeat of such embarrassing situations, it is hereby recommended
that the new bureau when inaugurated, should strengthen and reposition the Research
and Documentation Division even if with ad hoc support staff to provide
necessary guidance to the plenary when such issues arise to protect the
institutional credibility and integrity of the Pan African Parliament.
Olu Ibekwe is the Chairperson of the Steering Committee of the African
Parliamentary Press Network, APPN a Network of African journalists and
information officers reporting from regional, sub-regional and national
Parliaments in Africa. APPN promotes parliamentary openness and cordial working
relationship between Parliaments and the media and believes that a well
mobilized and resourced press corps or galleries in all African parliaments
will set the stage for the work of African Parliaments, including the
Pan-African Parliament, to be made visible to the people of Africa.
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