UPDATE
1-Nigeria's Jonathan set for victory in primaries
January
14, 2011 2:12:33 AM
* Jonathan builds unassailable lead
* Abubakar's camp says process
favours incumbent
* Defeated candidate's reaction key
By Joe Brock and Camillus Eboh
ABUJA, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Nigerian
President Goodluck Jonathan looked set to win the ruling party primaries on
Friday, building what appeared an unassailable lead in a vote whose conduct was
challenged by his main rival's supporters.
With results in from more than half
the country's 36 states and from the capital Abuja, Jonathan had 1,272 votes
against ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar's 373 and had beaten his rival in 18
of the 20 states counted. A simple majority wins.
The battle between Jonathan, the first
head of state from the southern oil-producing Niger Delta, and ex-Vice
President Atiku Abubakar, a businessman from the mostly Muslim north, has
divided opinion in the People's Democratic Party (PDP).
The PDP candidate has won every
presidential election in Africa's most populous nation since the end of
military rule in 1999, but the outcome may not be so certain this time.
Key will be how Abubakar reacts if
his defeat is confirmed. He could seek to form an alliance with northerners
from a rival party, taking some ruling party supporters with him, and still
challenge Jonathan at the April elections.
Abubakar's supporters said the
counting process at the primaries -- reading out results state by state --
favoured the incumbent because it put pressure on state governors, who depend
on federal resources to fund their budgets, to back him.
"It is a grand design to rig.
We only found out about it when we arrived here. We asked for a full delegates'
list, which we never got," said Umar Kareto Lawan, an Abubakar supporter
from the northeastern state of Borno.
Jonathan's supporters dismissed the
complaints.
"There will always be
complaints ... Complaints should be made before, not after," Foreign
Minister Odein Ajumogobia said.
POLARISED DEBATE
Jonathan's path to power -- assuming
the country's highest office when his predecessor, Umaru Yar'Adua, died last
year -- means Nigeria is in uncharted waters.
His bid interrupts a PDP pact that
power rotates between the mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south every
two terms. As a southerner, he faces opposition running for what would have
been the second term of Yar'Adua -- a northerner.
Abubakar's campaign manager, Ben
Obi, complained of irregularities, saying the delegates' lists had been
doctored, and Abubakar himself made a fiery speech at the convention condemning
Jonathan for breaching the zoning pact.
"If rules can be thrown away by
just anyone who feels he is powerful enough to do so, then it is an invitation
to lawlessness and anarchy," he said, raising doubts about whether he
would quietly accept defeat and back Jonathan.
Africa's most populous nation is a
patchwork of more than 200 ethnic groups, roughly equally divided between
Christians and Muslims, who generally live peacefully side by side, but
regional and ethnic rivalries bubble under the surface.
A New Year's Eve bomb in Abuja
killed four people. A series of blasts and subsequent clashes have killed more
than 80 in the central city of Jos, the scene of frequent bursts of ethnic and
religious unrest.
Analysts fear the election debate
could become polarised around north-south rivalries if parts of the PDP turn
their back on Jonathan once his win is confirmed. (For full Reuters Africa
coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://myafricachannel.tv/
) (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Jon Hemming)
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