THE furores in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, over its governors’ conducts and the possibilities of no primaries for the 2015 elections are part of the politics of convenience that the party has been playing exceptionally well since 1999.

Only three years ago, PDP at a forum promised to assist women vying for political offices in the 2011 elections.

Between official promises of giving them automatic tickets (even for seats with incumbent) and the moderated version that they would be provided funds to contest against others, nothing was done. PDP kept vacillating on an official position on primaries that hardly anyone understood how they were conducted.

Matters are a bit more complicated for 2015. Only seven of the PDP’s 23 governors are eligible for re-election. Of the number only three of the elections are due in 2015, the other five would be in 2016.

Governors who have served out their terms are seeking opportunities in the Senate. The party’s automatic ticket for incumbents therefore has no meaning for 20 of PDP’s governors.

PDP’s importance in the conduct of its affairs lies in the fact that it has overwhelmingly dominated Nigeria’s politics since 1999. Its main interest is in stabilising its hold on power. PDP is impulsive, undecided, with a high inclination to play above the law, in what it calls “family affair.”

Primaries are dictated by the Electoral Act. Every party should hold them. Primaries entrench firm democratic behaviours in parties. The poor examples of Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in the selection of its candidates have found followership in most of the political parties.

Why would candidates not be interested in contesting primaries? Why would they rather frighten others out of the process?

Many party members have invested their lives waiting for opportunities to vie for elective offices. If the parties do not make these positions open, they constrict opportunities and leave their members with few options than  the crises across the parties.

It is time the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, stepped into the organisation of the parties, and effect its constitutional obligations in ensuring that the parties are run democratically.

Hopes are lean that there would be primaries. If they hold, they would be in constituencies the parties want to punish the office holders, or where there is nobody strong enough to hijack the office.

Without primaries, Nigeria’s few gains in democracy would soon be gone. We can still have democratic governments, but they will be worse than dictatorships.

The culture of most parties imposing candidates on their members is the type of politics that would not be helpful in 2015. The parties should conduct primaries at all levels, for all offices. The democracies they claim to imitate do so.