DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION AND ELECTION MANAGEMENT IN WEST AFRICA: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

The wider acceptability of democracy as a form of political system is predicated on some of its basic attributes that attempts to serve the interest of the majority in a liberal society.
Transparency, equality, and peaceful means of political leadership selection underscore the irreducible minimum of democratic consolidation across the globe. However, there seems to be a serious quagmire in most of the countries in West Africa sub region when it comes to their experience with democracy. In order to scale the quagmire as experience in violence during the process of political leadership recruitment, the States established election management body with the objective of administering and serving as an unbiased umpire in the political system.
This paper interrogated factors that influence election violence in ECOWAS countries. This paper relied on secondary source of data collection and was analyzed using phenomenological interpretative method. The Result revealed that attitude of political leaders; ethnicity and mode of appointment into election management bodies were responsible for most of the election violence. Given these findings, the paper recommends that the election management body should be a body separate from the executive and suggest a thorough and aggressive review of the laws establishing it.