By Kenneth Ehigiator
THE Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Maurice Iwu, weekend, identified lack of internal democracy as cause of crisis within parties.

Iwu, who spoke at a conference organised by the Rights’ Monitoring Group (RMG), in Lagos, said crises among parties have made nonsense of the democratic process.

Iwu, who was represented by the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Lagos State, Mr. Moses Ogbe, declared that  parties do not, at present, respect their own constitutions, noting that that was responsible for much of the problems within them.

He said most of the political parties do not have platforms for the development of issues,  stressing that the commission was listening to all criticisms to fine-tune strategies to ensure that subsequent elections recorded improvement.

According to him, INEC has been engaged in constant reforms of its activities even before the Justice Uwais Commission was set up by government.

Iwu said internal restructuring of INEC was currently being carried out for effective service to the nation, adding that the commission had started carrying out reforms regarding the voter-registration.

Blaming politicians for the lack of internal democracy in their parties, Iwu declared that Christian religious leaders have not done enough in the area of voter- education in churches.

This, according to him, is capable of derailing the whole electoral process.

He said Christian leaders ought to have infused in their followers the urge to vote, contest and participate fully in the democratic system of the country, especially those that conduct the elections.