Professor Attahiru Jega, a former National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, has issued a warning that if stricter action is not taken to punish candidates and political parties, they will continue to break the law by running early election campaigns.
Premature election campaigns are essentially those that are conducted outside of the legally specified time frame, according to BASEMEDIA.
Jega pointed out that political parties and candidates are more likely to break these laws if they are poorly defined and enforced.
Premature campaigns, according to the political science professor, establish an unfair playing field, disregard and break the law, give unfair advantages to parties and candidates who act too quickly, foster and solidify a culture of lawlessness and impunity, cause political tensions, and may even lead to conflicts and the breakdown of law and order.
At INEC’s Roundtable on the Challenges of Premature Campaigns in Abuja on Wednesday, he stated that “effective sanctioning is essentially the panacea for addressing the challenges of all election campaigns, especially premature campaigns.”
Jega, who served as the event’s keynote speaker at the INEC Electoral Institute, pointed out that early election campaigns are undesirable anomalies in democratic elections that seriously jeopardize election integrity.
They represent one of the biggest risks to elections and compromise the integrity of the entire electoral process if they are not properly checked,” he continued.
In order to preserve the integrity of the electoral process, the majority of electoral systems mandate that campaigns follow the guidelines set forth in the electoral legal framework, respect the election calendar, respect the freedom and right of other parties to organize, campaign, and contact voters, respect election managers and refrain from interfering with their work, and use the official complaint procedure and the legal system for appeals (ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, 2012).
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