PCI Series: Osun 2018: Two main parties’ high powerful campaign committees and implications on the electorate

With 16 days to the Osun 2018 governorship election, political parties and candidates have intensified their campaigns with a view to winning the minds of the voters in the state before September 22. The All Progressives Congress, the ruling party and the People’s Democratic Party, the main opposition in the state are not leaving any stone unturned towards getting maximum votes in an election that has been described as the make or mar competition for the two parties as the country goes to polls in 2019 for the general elections. Public analysts believe that Osun 2018 will be a litmus test for the APC survival in the South West region. Already, the two political parties have formed high-powerful campaign committees that will oversee campaign activities during the remaining days of the campaign period. The ruling party announced a 63-member committee few days ago. People’s Democratic Party has also informed the public especially Osun indigenes of its readiness to deploy 44 members of the party for campaign activities in the state. Members of the APC’s committee are predominantly governors, ministers and members of parliament at the state and federal level while the PDP has present governors and former political leaders. The PDP’s committee will be chaired by Senator Bukola Saraki, the Senate President, who defected from the ruling party to the PDP recently.

The goal for the two committees is to ensure victory for their candidates. The goal that would be better achieved when the parties, their candidates and supporters make the campaigns issue-based rather than attacking and appealing to emotions of the voters. This is imperative because PCI has discovered that the number of members of the two parties’ campaign committees has some connection with the public interest in campaign activities. This could be negative or positive. PCI specifically found that the higher the number of members of the committees the higher the tendency for the public not to have interest in the election, the two political parties and campaign activities. In this regard, 96.5% reduction was discovered.

As the campaign train moves across the 9 constituencies and senatorial districts, PCI expects members of the committees to watch their utterances and actions especially in the regions where candidates have their supporters mostly. When the engagements turned negative, there is likelihood of having low voter turnout on 22nd September. The question of candidates’ viability would also arise.