Nigeria, Northland
and New South Wales went to the polls recently. How were LGBT interests dealt
with in each jurisdiction?
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Second, Nigeria.
The antigay West African state has had four consecutive elections since the end
of its most recent military dictatorship in 1999. It was meant to be held in
February 2015, but had to be postponed due to the Museveni regime's continued
incompetence in dealing with the Boko Haram insurgency in several Muslim
majority Northern Nigerian states until late March 2015. If incumbent President
Goodluck Jonathan wins, it will be his last term, thankfully, due to Nigerian
presidential term limit legislation. It hasn't been too popular within his own
People's Democratic Party and has destabilised the parliamentary party as a
consequence. Sectarian religious violence, whether Christian or Muslim, is a
perennial problem across Nigeria.
Jonathan and the
PDP were opposed by an "All Progressives Coalition" consisting of four parties-
the Action Congress of Nigeria, the All Nigeria Peoples Party, the All
Progressives Grand Alliance and the Congress for Progressive Change. However,
its current leader (and now Nigerian president-elect) is a former Nigerian
military dictator, Muhammadu Buhari (72). Moreover, the All-Progressive
Coalition was formed shortly before the current election and there are
reportedly concerns about its stability within Nigeria. Buhari was one of the
leaders of the military coup held in 1983 against then democratically elected
Nigerian President Shehu Shagari. Detention without trial, repressive state
censorship, imprisonment of dissidents, and harsh anti-drug policies were all
rife during the sixteen year dictatorship that followed. If elected, Buhari says
that he will respect Nigeria's current democratic institutions, even given this
dire track record while involved within the prior military dictatorship as a
major general. Given his rigorous anti-corruption campaign, Buhari is popular
amongst some Nigerians, but has also promised to introduce rigorous Islamist
sharia law. That may alienate fundamentalist Protestant elements in
Southern Nigeria, who have undertaken sectarian violence against Southern
Nigerian Muslims in the past, although they have reciprocated in kind.
There have been
questions about the competence and independence of the Independent National
Election Commission, charged with overseeing federal and state Nigerian
elections. It has been criticised for incompetence when it came to timely
distribution and delivery of voters identification cards and the possibility of
partisan post-election violence is also a cause for concern, as is the
continuing, unresolved anti-regime conservative Islamist Boko Haram insurgency,
and its capture and forcible detention of several Nigerian schoolgirls amidst
reports of their consequent arranged marriages. Hundreds of people died after
post-election riots in 2011. The Nigerian Womens Platform for a Peaceful
Election publicised women's issues during the elections, while southwest Niger
Delta imams questioned Buhari's commitment to democratic values given his
military past, should Goodluck Jonathan lose. Overseas, the
Economistsupported Buhari as the "least worst" option. Polls suggested a
tight electoral race, although there is always the threat of corruption and
incompetence in this context, as noted above. For LGBT voters, there's nothing
to choose between either Jonathan or Buhari, both of whom espouse religious
social conservative positions on LGBT concerns. Buhari and his entourage voted
for Nigeria's controversial antigay legislation, cited in the paragraph
below.
In January 2014,
Goodluck Jonathan signed Nigeria's repressive "Same Sex Marriage Prohibition
Act" into law after it had been passed by the Nigerian federal House of
Representatives and Senate. The draconian legislation prohibits lesbian and gay
relationships, wedding ceremonies, political organisations and provides for
fourteen year prison sentences if these strict antigay policies are violated.
The Nigerian police made a rapid list of 168 potential detainees, of which
thirty eight are currently detained. The legislation also mandates imprisonment
for straight allies of LGBT rights if they 'obstruct' or 'withhold' evidence
about LGBT activities related to this legislation. Moreover, Northern and
Southern Nigerian states both have criminal codes that penalise both lesbians
and gay men for lesbianism and 'sodomy', as well as gay men for "gross
indecency." Transvestism is also illegal in Nigeria. Repression has been
undertaken against lesbian and gay Christian members of the House of Rainbow
Metropolitan Community Church, whose members have been assaulted. HIV prevention
programmes exist in Lagos but are hampered by the continuing prohibition of male
homosexuality and endemic Nigerian homophobia. Given the depressing description
above, it is unlikely that even if there is a change of regime, little will
change for the better in Nigeria. Indeed, Boko Haram bombings occurred in two
Nigerian electorates and there was considerable voter frustration at the
slowness of the electoral process.
Surprisingly,
however, Muhammadu Buhari won the election, defeating the hapless and
incompetent Goodluck Jonathan, by about three million votes for the presidency.
This marks the first time that an incumbent president has been defeated in a
Nigerian election. Thus far, Peoples Democratic Party supporters have accepted
the situation. At present, it seems that returns from individual electorates are
still being processed and only a fraction of Nigerian Legislative Assembly and
Senate seats (elected by First Past the Post) have been declared. As is
predictable, the Peoples Democratic Party still seem to hold a significant
proportion of seats in both, perhaps enough to win a majority- which may lead to
gridlock and yet another military coup several years from now.
In New South Wales,
the Liberal National Coalition is still in government. New South Wales uses the
unproportional preferential voting option to elect its lower House of
Representatives and the proportional representation Single Transferable Vote
electoral system for its upper Legislative Council. In the House of
Representatives, the Coalition holds sixty one seats while the ALP holds twenty
three. In its Legislative Council, the Coalition doesn't have a majority and is
faced by the ALP and Greens, as well as representatives of the Shooters and
Fishers Party and the fundamentalist Christian Democratic Party, both of which
have two MLAs each. During the current term of state parliamentary previous
Coalition NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell was forced to leave office due to giving
misleading information to the Independent Commission Against Corruption within
the state, to be replaced by incumbent Coalition Premier Mike Baird. Similarly,
ALP NSW Leader of the Opposition John Robertson quit after revelations linking
him to mentally ill Muslim gunman Man Haris Monis in December 2014, to be
replaced by current incumbent Luke Foley, who has recently changed his stance on
marriage equality to supportive. Most opinion polls have the Liberal Party in
the lead by an eight to twelve point margin and Baird's party is widely expected
to retain state office, perhaps even by a comfortable margin. Other than
marriage equality, New South Wales has an excellent record on LGBT issues, even
slightly in advance of New Zealand when it comes to transgender-inclusive
antidiscrimination laws. although there are religious exemptions for its
adoption legislation that apply to religious adoption providers.
In the event, the
Liberal/National Coalition retained power for once, with a thirteen seat
majority over the ALP and the Greens, but had to cede sixteen seats in the lower
house Legislative Assembly. In the Legislative Council upper house however, it
may find it difficult to pass new legislation, given that they still do not have
an operational majority there. And so, as the Fairfax newspapers have noted, the
Liberal/National Coalition are still in control of Australia's most populous
state. However, does this prove anything about the ultimate viability of the
Abbott administration? It would be foolish to relapse into the ineptitude and
extremism of the previous few years, although one does wonder whether Abbott's
administration is pragmatic and flexible enough to draw lessons from the
Coalition's New South Wales victory, or whether this is a short term
advantage.
