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- Title
Like Kwazulu-Natal, Like Rivers State: The Implications of Prebendalism on Electoral Contest.
- Authors
Okorie, Mitterand M.
- Abstract
Prebendalism is a pattern of political behaviour where political offices are contested for and utilised to enrich its holders and their cronies. On account of this, the struggle for electoral positions may assume desperate dimensions, with political violence highly implicated in the mix. This article studies the patterns of election-related violence in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and Rivers State, Nigeria. Using a qualitative methodology, it observes that similar factors occasioned the inordinate spate of assassination and political violence in KwaZulu-Natal in 2016, and the electionrelated killings in Rivers State in the build-up to the 2015 local elections. In both localities, politicians fete to patronage networks that are desperate to see political patrons emerge victorious while leveraging on violence. Secondly, both localities share a common identity as former hotbeds of political violence and thus suffer from the toxic vestiges of an entrenched culture of violence. While South Africa’s transition to democracy was marked by high levels of violence in KwaZulu-Natal between the African National Congress (ANC) and Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), Rivers State was the epicentre of Nigeria’s Niger Delta insurgency. The study, therefore, maintains that when prebendalism intersects with the availability of violent non-state actors, the likelihood of electoral violence is often high.
- Subjects
RIVERS State (Nigeria); KWAZULU-Natal (South Africa); PATRONAGE; POLITICAL violence; LOCAL elections; CONTESTS; VIOLENCE
- Publication
Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences, 2021, Vol 11, Issue 1, p41
- ISSN
1944-1088
- Publication type
Article