How the 50-plus-one could be a curse

About two years ago, Automatic Immediate Technologies (AIT) made a presentation to IEBC with a specific focus on the application and implication of the 50 per cent-plus-one threshold in the management of elections. It was pointed out that whereas the formula was intended to be a blessing, it could, in fact, turn out to be a curse.

Across Africa, the experiments are, apparently, creating more political ills than they are curing. Some African countries that have experimented with the 50 per cent-plus-one threshold for presidential elections include Zimbabwe, Liberia, DRC-Congo, Ghana, and Sierra Leon.

 Whereas DRC-Congo experimented with the formula in the 2006, the results were so frightening that the formula had to be abandoned before the 2011 elections. The experiment was very exciting for the Liberians in 2005. However, the October 2011 experiment turned out as very problematic. The voter turnout in the “runoff” was a dismissal 37 per cent of the registered voters. Consequently, President Helen Johnsons Sirleaf’s second term in office faces a legitimacy crisis.

In Zimbabwean, 2008, the run- off was practically impossible. The country was politically gravely polarised.  In 2009, Ghana had to go through three elections, even if the third was in only one district, but after three months of waiting, before the presidential contest was considered settled.  Kenya also came up with the threshhold and we have seen how things have started. The threshhold even though looks good, could be curse.

 Christopher Nyongesa