Nope, not the Nigerian elections, but the Scottish elections. I had to lay this on thick for all the Nigerians who insisted that election malpractice and incompetence was not a strictly Nigerian disease. Delays in counting because a helicopter couldn't make it to the counting centre, computers not able to count some ballot papers.
The key difference is that there is no "Maurice Iwu" type character telling the world that the electoral commission should be patting itself on the back. Everyone has said what a disgraceful state events are in. There is also no deliberate attempt to disenfranchise voters, as occured in Nigeria.
And one of the main issues I had with the Nigerian elections was the scale. Too many things being contested at once for it to be a manageable affair. Britain has a far smaller electorate, yet elections for different offices take place every year. In every four year period of the electoral cycle there are general elections, municipal elections, local council elections, mayoral elections, assembly elections, European elections. This allows for every election to be on a manageable scale, and much more easily monitored. You'd be hard pressed to find another country as big as Nigeria which elects everyone at the same time. It's just a bit much.
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The key distinction, like you rightly spotted, is the reaction to the problems. In one case its out-and-out condemnation by everyone involved. In the other case, some people were blind to the problems that were pretty obvious.
It happens everywhere. My voting form regulary goes walkies in block of flats and miraculously appears the days after the elections! The council are no help either so last time I wasn't allowed to vote at all. I was well pissed off as you can imagine!
I did find it worrying though to see a box of election papers in a transparent plastic container on the back of an Okada in Lagos a few weeks ago. Anyone could have tampered with those papers.
Home from home I say - corruption everywhere :)
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