From Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha
A human rights group, Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) has described as unhealthy and threat to democratic spirit and principle the acrimonious primary election conducted by the three major political parties in the forthcoming governorship election which necessitated avoidable litigations and acrimony.
The CLO Anambra State chapter in a statement tagged “Enough is Enough”jointly signed by its Chairman, Mr. Vincent Ezekwueme and its Secretary Mr. Chidi Mbah called for internal democracy.
The human rights group lamented that despite appeal to all political parties to conduct free, fair, credible and generally acceptable primary elections devoid of manipulation, it was observed in breach by some of the political parties.
The group said: “”We reiterate our earlier appeal on the political parties to ensure social justice and level playing ground for all aspirants to ensure peace and harmony.
“CLO is of the opinion that injustice precipitates agitations, because no justice, no peace and peace without justice is the peace of the graveyard.
“It is pertinent and of great relevance for political parties to call their over zealous members to order and pacify those they have wronged in the cause of conducting the primary elections and plead with them for the interest of sustenance of our hard won democracy and the state to withdraw all litigations against primary elections by some major political parties.
“It is regrettable that instead of our political leaders to think about next generation and how they will mobilise citizens not only to obtain their voter cards but to also take active part in the Anambra governorship election slated for Nov. 6th 2021.
“It is of prime importance for INEC, political parties, politician’s and stakeholders to ensure internal democracy for political parties. Worthy of note is that without internal democracy, it will be very difficult, if not impossible to guarantee external democracy during main election because anyone who manipulated primary election will as well do everything possible to also manipulate the main election which is contrary to democratic norms and one man, one vote which is the beauty and tenets of democratic governance.