Presidential debate is unacceptable – Senate

The Senate has struck out a proposal made to the amendment to the 2010 Electoral Act for presidential debates among contestants before any presidential election.
The rejection of presidential debates was contained in the report of the Senate Committees on the Review of the 1999 Constitution and the Independent National Electoral Commission, entitled: “A Bill for an Act to amend the Electoral Act, 2010 to provide for tenure of office of Secretary, power to issue duplicate voters card, determine voting procedure and for other related matters, 2014,” which was presented by the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, at plenary.
The Upper Chamber was of the view that election debates should be put out of the purview of the law and not made mandatory for party candidates before standing for an election.
Also, the Senate also kicked against the proposal that sought to place the responsibility of proving the regularity or otherwise of any election on the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The Committees said its position was that the burden of proof on electoral irregularities during election should be on the petitioner.
The report of the committee reads in part: “On the other hand, a number of proposals were rejected by the committees. Some of the proposals rejected are:
“Senate Bill 297 – (Sought to vest the responsibility of proving the regularity of any election on the Independent National Electoral Commission). The Bill was rejected in its entirety as the committees were of the view that in law, the burden of proof lies with the petitioner.
“Senate Bill 266 (Amendment of Section 25 to empower INEC to conduct elections into the office of the President, Governor, Senate, House of Representatives and State Assemblies on the same day) – The Committees were unanimous in the opinion that INEC presently lacks the capacity to manage an electoral exercise of that scale in a single day.
“Senate Bill 379 (Amendment of Section 28 – to provide alternative authority for officers to swear oath of neutrality). This was rejected as it was already covered in Bill 455.
“The Senate Bill 379 (Amendment of Section 87 to empower INEC where a political party fails to comply with the provisions of the Constitution or Electoral Act, to exclude the nominated candidate of that party from the list of nominated candidates for the election.
“The Committees were of the view that the court is the appropriate forum to determine the regularity or otherwise of a party primary.
“Senate Bill 266 (Amendment of Section 100 to make Presidential Debates mandatory before an election). Election debates, the Committees felt, should remain outside the purview of the law.”
The Committees further observed that the Bills offered diverse opinion on the issue of deepening democracy and democratic gains through electoral reforms.
However, it said there were glaring problems of practicability, repetitiveness of some provisions, contradiction of standard legal principles and constitutional provisions.
Hence, some of the provisions of the aforementioned Bills 266, 297, 379 and 455 were rejected.
Meanwhile, prominent among the new amendments to the Electoral Act are the provision of tenure for the Secretary of the Commission.
It also gave INEC sufficient time to process transfer of voters and issuance of duplicate voters’ card and also allowed the electoral umpire to determine the procedure for voting at an election, “thereby removing the prohibition of electronic voting”.
The amendment also increased the time for INEC to produce certified true copies of documents requested by any party in an election petition from one week to two weeks.