Political associations sue electoral commission

Some 33 unregistered political associations in Nigeria filed a suit against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday at the Federal High Court in Abuja, a media source told IRIN.

The associations want to be registered as political parties, but consider the registration guidelines unconstitutional and want INEC to revise them, ThisDay newspaper reported. INEC had amended the guidelines once before in response to objections by would-be parties.

The associations, which had called on President Olusegun Obasanjo to sack INEC Chairman Abel Guobadia, have objected to provisions such as one which forbids any group seeking registration, from having the same name or acronym as three existing political parties.

Other provisions they oppose include a requirement that would-be parties must not have any ethnic, religious or professional bias, or be confined to a given region of the country.

INEC said on Monday it would not change the guidelines again.

"We will go ahead with our timetable for the registration of the political parties, Thisday reported Sam Okpo, the INEC Commissioner in charge of Information and Publicity as saying. "If that [means] we breached the constitution the court is there to determine whether we have over- stepped our boundaries."

The media source contacted by IRIN on Friday said that the likely implication of the associations' move was that the court would have to interpret the constitution and decide the limits of INEC's powers over the parties.

Any delays in the court process, he said, could affect local elections due on 10 August.