Elections as a truly democratic regime to exist Essay

Elections
It is important to mention first of all that elections are essential conditions in order for a truly democratic regime to exist. According to Robert Dahl, a fore known scholar of political science, he pointed out, 5 basic criteria for a true democracy to exist and they are effective participation equality in voting gaining enlightened understanding final control of agenda and inclusion.
Writing on elections in Nigeria in 2011 before delving into the result of his research, Adeniji Samson described elections as
Election is a process under democracy through which people or citizens exercise their freedom and inalienable right to organize their life and choose those whom they delegate their rights as representative. (Samson, 2011)
It can be deduced that election is a process and is done in the interest of the citizens it can be said to the most direct indirect way of carrying out the criteria for democracy and democracy in itself. There are many various ways of conducting elections, the most popular being 'voting'. With that stated, according to Mackenzie & Rokkan (1968), election is defined as
a form of procedure, recognized by the rules of an organization, whereby all or some of the members of the organization choose a smaller number of persons or one person to hold office of authority in the organization.
This definition points out that elections have a structure which is adhered to and isn't just a political phenomena and cuts across other organizations of the human society. In functioning as a shaper for the human society and human decisions in a general sense, elections are backed up by specific rules and regulations. Politically, they are backed by constitutions.
Elections are decisive moments in the in the political history of any society.
For more clarity, Paul David Webb describes the concept of election as
The formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting.
In explaining the concept of elections, Paul Webb's definition brings to sight the idea that elections do not always bring about positive outcomes, on the part of the winner for such an election but also for the policies that he brings which are judged as the best because of the en masse support against those of his opponents. Elections remove bad policies by public polls and votes of no confidence from the legislature.
Presidential elections specifically are elections that are conducted in order to bring or usher in a new president into office.
It is constitutionally agreed upon, hence legally binding and usually occurs within an agreed period of time. In Nigeria, it is usually four (4) years as stipulated by the 1999 Nigerian Constitution. Specifically, Article 134 (2) of the Nigerian Constitution stipulates that a presidential candidate will be duly elected after attaining both the highest number of votes cast, and having received at least a quarter of the votes at each of at least two-thirds of the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).