On Saturday, February 7, 2015, the INEC boss announced to the press the postponement of the 14th and 28th polls to new dates of 28th of March and 11th of April for the federal and states elections respectively. According to him, the commission got a letter from the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), with obvious reasons for the shift of the polls to at least, 6 weeks ahead. Upon the shift of this constitutional ritual that gives the electorates the will to rationally choose the managers of their common wealth, there was a pandemonium, jubilation, rancor and acrimony amongst a section of the Nigerian public whose interests may have been affected (positively or negatively) by the unavoidable shift.
Instead of being affected by the "bandwagonism", I decided to take a survey on some countries that postponed their elections in one time or the other for diverse reasons, especially that of security. I have heard insults thrown at INEC, the central government and a political party for the shift. I read somewhere that the US also condemned this " irrational" act by the Nigerian government when in some countries (as listed below), the US was part of the reasons those countries shifted their elections.
Enjoy!

Libyan elections postponed amid mounting violence

Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) has postponed elections scheduled for June 19 amid continuing militia clashes, kidnappings and arrests. The elections are unlikely to be held before mid-July at the earliest.
On Wednesday, the US Consulate in Benghazi came under bomb and grenade attack, although no one was injured. It was reportedly in retaliation for the killing of Libyan-born cleric Abu Yahya al-Libi by a US drone strike in Pakistan hours before.
Earlier in the week, a brigade of al-Afwiya militiamen briefly took over the capital’s international airport in Tripoli and grounded all flights to pressure the NTC to release their leader, Abu Ajila al-Habshi.
The al-Afwiya is only one of more than 500 “rebel” armed outfits that fought Gaddafi’s forces. During the NATO war, they seized different parts of Libya and its vital and most lucrative infrastructure and funds and set up checkpoints along the major highways. Many of these rival gangs have yet to disband or be integrated into the national army, itself little more than another militia. There have been constant reports of fighting between these armed groups as they carve up Libya’s towns and cities into “zones of influence.”
The continuation of these conflicts exposes as a lie the justification for the NATO-led war for regime-change—that it would bring democracy and human rights. Rather than “liberation”, the country faces violent break-up and civil war.
The elections, when and if they are held, will themselves be a travesty of democracy. They will choose a 200-seat constituent assembly whose primary task is to draft a new constitution, which is then to be put to a referendum. Electoral legislation states that only those with a “professional qualification” can stand as a candidate, making it impossible for workers to stand. Virtually everyone who worked at any level in Gaddafi’s government is also barred, unless they can demonstrate “early and clear support for the February 17th revolution.”
The interim government has also introduced controversial new laws making it a crime to glorify the former regime or “insult the aims of the February 17 revolution.”
Taken together, the laws restrict candidature to a relatively small number, and even these are subject to approval by the Electoral Commission.
The postponement of the vote has elicited little comment from the Western powers. Their real intention in Libya was to install a pliant administration that would enable them to secure control of the country’s lucrative oil reserves, bolster their geo-strategic position in North Africa, and increase their penetration of the entire African continent. To this end, they gave their backing to the NTC—an amalgam of former regime stalwarts, CIA assets and Islamic fundamentalists.


Tense Thailand debates postponing Feb elections
As Thailand prepared for advance voting Sunday, the government indicated a willingness to delay the main Feb. 2 elections if protesters recognized the legitimacy of a new vote. A state of emergency was declared this week in Bangkok due to protest-related violence.

WORLD LATEST NEWS WIRES
Tense Thailand debates postponing Feb elections
As Thailand prepared for advance voting Sunday, the government indicated a willingness to delay the main Feb. 2 elections if protesters recognized the legitimacy of a new vote. A state of emergency was declared this week in Bangkok due to protest-related violence.

BANGKOK — A tense Thailand prepared for Sunday's round of advance voting as the main Feb. 2 elections still hung in the balance. The ruling party indicated it wants the vote to go ahead but was willing to delay it if political rivals end months of protests and agree to recognize the legitimacy of a new vote.

Yingluck Shinawatra's government is under extreme pressure from the protesters who have occupied key intersections in Bangkok and tried to shut down government offices and prevent civil servants from working. They have vowed to disrupt the elections, want Yingluck to resign and an appointed interim government to implement anti-corruption reforms before a new vote can take place.

On Friday, the Constitutional Court ruled that the government, in agreement with the Election Commission, could postpone the polls. But Yingluck's Pheu Thai party questioned the legal basis for the ruling.



Election Postponement in Lebanon Sparks Angry Protests

Lebanese fear the sectarian civil war in neighboring Syria will tear their country apart. But as communal rifts widen, political leaders in Beirut have been locked in dispute over the formation of a new power-sharing government, and a 17-month postponement of scheduled elections has touched off angry protests.

Protests flared this past week in the downtown part of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, against a decision to postpone elections and extend the mandate of the country’s parliament. This is coming at a time when spillover sectarian violence is worsening in the country because of the conflict raging across the border in Syria.


Ebola crisis: Liberia holds senate postponed election
Voters in Liberia are going to the polls in an election that was postponed in October because of the Ebola outbreak which ravaged the country.

Liberians are choosing representatives to the country’s senate.

Among the 139 candidates vying for 15 seats are former football star George Weah and Robert Sirleaf, the son of Liberia’s president.

Ebola has infected about 19,000 people in West Africa, killing more than 7,300 – with about 3,340 deaths in Liberia.

The senate elections were postponed in October in a bid to stop campaigners and voters spreading the virus.

The election is being held just days after neighbouring Sierra Leone clamped down on public gatherings.

It has banned Sunday trading, restricted travel between districts and prohibited public celebrations over Christmas and the New Year.


Guinea postpones presidential vote

Guinea has postponed its presidential election for the second time, acting President General Sekouba Konate announced on state TV Wednesday evening.
The vote -- a runoff between two candidates -- had been scheduled for Sunday.
The delay has raised concerns about the West African country's ability to end military rule and could raise tensions between supporters of the two candidates -- longtime opposition leader Alpha Conde and former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo.
No new date was named.
Konate cited logistical and managerial problems at the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) as the main reasons for the delay.
"[The CENI] has just suggested a postponement of the date for the second round of the presidential election, initially planned for September 19th, for technical reasons related to the requirements of the candidates," Konate said.
No candidate won an outright majority in first-round elections held in late June. An initial runoff date of September 2 was delayed due to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and the rainy season.
Konate implored all sides to stay calm, and said that the CENI would meet to determine when the election will be, but he did not specify when the meeting would take place.
Both candidates accepted the delay, but Diallo raised concerns over the impasse.
"The situation has not been sufficiently justified and I'm a bit disappointed," Diallo said in a meeting broadcast on national TV.
Conde's RPG party refrained from commenting directly on the second postponement. Moustapha Naite, a spokesman for Conde's campaign, told CNN, "We are waiting for the CENI to correct the mistakes of the first round. The CENI is the one that is organizing the election."
Prime Minister Jean-Marie Dore met with both candidates and members of the election commission in the nation's seaside capital, Conakry, to discuss the situation before the postponement was announced.
Pathy Dieng, a spokesman for election commission, said that the commission had just received the voting lists from all the country's voting stations, and was prevented until now from ordering digital voting cards that would not be ready for distribution by Sunday, according to national TV.
The news that the commission's president, Ben Sekou Sylla, died in Paris while receiving medical treatment for a long-term illness piled pressure on the organization Monday, according to state TV Tuesday. Guinean courts had convicted and sentenced Sylla and CENI's planning director to a year in prison for fraud committed during the first round, in a decision last Thursday.
The conviction sparked weekend violence between youthful factions of the rival candidates, killing one person and wounding 51 others, according to official figures.
Campaigning was suspended by the government in the aftermath of the violence, and campaigning remained suspended Wednesday.
After a challenge of the first-round results by Conde's RPG party, Guinea's supreme court had found several minor voting irregularities in that vote and revised official results slightly but upheld the overall results, with Diallo coming in first and Conde second.
Bordered by Liberia, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone -- all of which experienced civil war at some point in the past two decades -- Guinea has long been a beacon of peace in an uncertain region.
But there are worries that the nation's first truly transparent presidential vote with no incumbent candidate -- thus with less of a chance of rigging, according to observers -- is taking on an ethnic dimension, with majority ethnic groups Peuls and Malinke voting for their respective candidates, Diallo and Conde.
Populations of both of these groups live in neighboring countries, and experts are concerned that violence in Guinea would have the potential to spread across porous borders to post-conflict states Liberia and Sierra Leone.

THE LIST IS JUST UNENDING...

MARCHuary awaits Buhari

Sigh Buhari .......... Mtcheeeeeeeew!

GEJ till 2019

Nice one.

anyhow dem like am, even if dem shift the election put for buhari house, I will still vote for GEJ.

GEJtill 2019

you won't see any thing good to compare nigeria with.....pathetic

jst check the list, and u are proud nigeria is now among them.

sheddybest:
On Saturday, February 7, 2015, the INEC boss announced to the press the postponement of the 14th and 28th polls to new dates of 28th of March and 11th of April for the federal and states elections respectively. According to him, the commission got a letter from the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), with obvious reasons for the shift of the polls to at least, 6 weeks ahead. Upon the shift of this constitutional ritual that gives the electorates the will to rationally choose the managers of their common wealth, there was a pandemonium, jubilation, rancor and acrimony amongst a section of the Nigerian public whose interests may have been affected (positively or negatively) by the unavoidable shift.
Instead of being affected by the "bandwagonism", I decided to take a survey on some countries that postponed their elections in one time or the other for diverse reasons, especially that of security. I have heard insults thrown at INEC, the central government and a political party for the shift. I read somewhere that the US also condemned this " irrational" act by the Nigerian government when in some countries (as listed below), the US was part of the reasons those countries shifted their elections.
Enjoy!

Libyan elections postponed amid mounting violence

Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) has postponed elections scheduled for June 19 amid continuing militia clashes, kidnappings and arrests. The elections are unlikely to be held before mid-July at the earliest.
On Wednesday, the US Consulate in Benghazi came under bomb and grenade attack, although no one was injured. It was reportedly in retaliation for the killing of Libyan-born cleric Abu Yahya al-Libi by a US drone strike in Pakistan hours before.
Earlier in the week, a brigade of al-Afwiya militiamen briefly took over the capital’s international airport in Tripoli and grounded all flights to pressure the NTC to release their leader, Abu Ajila al-Habshi.
The al-Afwiya is only one of more than 500 “rebel” armed outfits that fought Gaddafi’s forces. During the NATO war, they seized different parts of Libya and its vital and most lucrative infrastructure and funds and set up checkpoints along the major highways. Many of these rival gangs have yet to disband or be integrated into the national army, itself little more than another militia. There have been constant reports of fighting between these armed groups as they carve up Libya’s towns and cities into “zones of influence.”
The continuation of these conflicts exposes as a lie the justification for the NATO-led war for regime-change—that it would bring democracy and human rights. Rather than “liberation”, the country faces violent break-up and civil war.
The elections, when and if they are held, will themselves be a travesty of democracy. They will choose a 200-seat constituent assembly whose primary task is to draft a new constitution, which is then to be put to a referendum. Electoral legislation states that only those with a “professional qualification” can stand as a candidate, making it impossible for workers to stand. Virtually everyone who worked at any level in Gaddafi’s government is also barred, unless they can demonstrate “early and clear support for the February 17th revolution.”
The interim government has also introduced controversial new laws making it a crime to glorify the former regime or “insult the aims of the February 17 revolution.”
Taken together, the laws restrict candidature to a relatively small number, and even these are subject to approval by the Electoral Commission.
The postponement of the vote has elicited little comment from the Western powers. Their real intention in Libya was to install a pliant administration that would enable them to secure control of the country’s lucrative oil reserves, bolster their geo-strategic position in North Africa, and increase their penetration of the entire African continent. To this end, they gave their backing to the NTC—an amalgam of former regime stalwarts, CIA assets and Islamic fundamentalists.


Tense Thailand debates postponing Feb elections
As Thailand prepared for advance voting Sunday, the government indicated a willingness to delay the main Feb. 2 elections if protesters recognized the legitimacy of a new vote. A state of emergency was declared this week in Bangkok due to protest-related violence.

WORLD LATEST NEWS WIRES
Tense Thailand debates postponing Feb elections
As Thailand prepared for advance voting Sunday, the government indicated a willingness to delay the main Feb. 2 elections if protesters recognized the legitimacy of a new vote. A state of emergency was declared this week in Bangkok due to protest-related violence.

BANGKOK — A tense Thailand prepared for Sunday's round of advance voting as the main Feb. 2 elections still hung in the balance. The ruling party indicated it wants the vote to go ahead but was willing to delay it if political rivals end months of protests and agree to recognize the legitimacy of a new vote.

Yingluck Shinawatra's government is under extreme pressure from the protesters who have occupied key intersections in Bangkok and tried to shut down government offices and prevent civil servants from working. They have vowed to disrupt the elections, want Yingluck to resign and an appointed interim government to implement anti-corruption reforms before a new vote can take place.

On Friday, the Constitutional Court ruled that the government, in agreement with the Election Commission, could postpone the polls. But Yingluck's Pheu Thai party questioned the legal basis for the ruling.



Election Postponement in Lebanon Sparks Angry Protests

Lebanese fear the sectarian civil war in neighboring Syria will tear their country apart. But as communal rifts widen, political leaders in Beirut have been locked in dispute over the formation of a new power-sharing government, and a 17-month postponement of scheduled elections has touched off angry protests.

Protests flared this past week in the downtown part of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, against a decision to postpone elections and extend the mandate of the country’s parliament. This is coming at a time when spillover sectarian violence is worsening in the country because of the conflict raging across the border in Syria.


Ebola crisis: Liberia holds senate postponed election
Voters in Liberia are going to the polls in an election that was postponed in October because of the Ebola outbreak which ravaged the country.

Liberians are choosing representatives to the country’s senate.

Among the 139 candidates vying for 15 seats are former football star George Weah and Robert Sirleaf, the son of Liberia’s president.

Ebola has infected about 19,000 people in West Africa, killing more than 7,300 – with about 3,340 deaths in Liberia.

The senate elections were postponed in October in a bid to stop campaigners and voters spreading the virus.

The election is being held just days after neighbouring Sierra Leone clamped down on public gatherings.

It has banned Sunday trading, restricted travel between districts and prohibited public celebrations over Christmas and the New Year.


Guinea postpones presidential vote

Guinea has postponed its presidential election for the second time, acting President General Sekouba Konate announced on state TV Wednesday evening.
The vote -- a runoff between two candidates -- had been scheduled for Sunday.
The delay has raised concerns about the West African country's ability to end military rule and could raise tensions between supporters of the two candidates -- longtime opposition leader Alpha Conde and former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo.
No new date was named.
Konate cited logistical and managerial problems at the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) as the main reasons for the delay.
"[The CENI] has just suggested a postponement of the date for the second round of the presidential election, initially planned for September 19th, for technical reasons related to the requirements of the candidates," Konate said.
No candidate won an outright majority in first-round elections held in late June. An initial runoff date of September 2 was delayed due to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and the rainy season.
Konate implored all sides to stay calm, and said that the CENI would meet to determine when the election will be, but he did not specify when the meeting would take place.
Both candidates accepted the delay, but Diallo raised concerns over the impasse.
"The situation has not been sufficiently justified and I'm a bit disappointed," Diallo said in a meeting broadcast on national TV.
Conde's RPG party refrained from commenting directly on the second postponement. Moustapha Naite, a spokesman for Conde's campaign, told CNN, "We are waiting for the CENI to correct the mistakes of the first round. The CENI is the one that is organizing the election."
Prime Minister Jean-Marie Dore met with both candidates and members of the election commission in the nation's seaside capital, Conakry, to discuss the situation before the postponement was announced.
Pathy Dieng, a spokesman for election commission, said that the commission had just received the voting lists from all the country's voting stations, and was prevented until now from ordering digital voting cards that would not be ready for distribution by Sunday, according to national TV.
The news that the commission's president, Ben Sekou Sylla, died in Paris while receiving medical treatment for a long-term illness piled pressure on the organization Monday, according to state TV Tuesday. Guinean courts had convicted and sentenced Sylla and CENI's planning director to a year in prison for fraud committed during the first round, in a decision last Thursday.
The conviction sparked weekend violence between youthful factions of the rival candidates, killing one person and wounding 51 others, according to official figures.
Campaigning was suspended by the government in the aftermath of the violence, and campaigning remained suspended Wednesday.
After a challenge of the first-round results by Conde's RPG party, Guinea's supreme court had found several minor voting irregularities in that vote and revised official results slightly but upheld the overall results, with Diallo coming in first and Conde second.
Bordered by Liberia, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone -- all of which experienced civil war at some point in the past two decades -- Guinea has long been a beacon of peace in an uncertain region.
But there are worries that the nation's first truly transparent presidential vote with no incumbent candidate -- thus with less of a chance of rigging, according to observers -- is taking on an ethnic dimension, with majority ethnic groups Peuls and Malinke voting for their respective candidates, Diallo and Conde.
Populations of both of these groups live in neighboring countries, and experts are concerned that violence in Guinea would have the potential to spread across porous borders to post-conflict states Liberia and Sierra Leone.

THE LIST IS JUST UNENDING...

Thanks for this....its the responsible thing to do. All Nigerians at home or abroad, if they are honest with themselves, were fearful of the level of violence almost guaranteed with this election.

Our elections had always been in April. Although this postponement is not good for the sponsors of these rallies but for some of us who only see the Abuja big boys during campaigns, we are still expecting them again!
Bring all the loots again. Praying for another reschedule time table after round 2 rallies. Thieves! We are waiting for all the parties.

realmindz:
you won't see any thing good to compare nigeria with.....pathetic

jst check the list, and u are proud nigeria is now among them.

My dear, the footnote states that the list is unending!
For crying out loud, these are all independent states as Nigeria.
If I were you, I will dedicate this time that you get embittered at my post to carry out my own survey!
I am sincerely sorry if you are one of the vested interests that were affected by this truth.
I am proud of my ability to think rationally, carry out an unbiased research rather than get adrift by internet noise makers!

This is just funny. When Nigeria govt want to do wrong tinz like removing subsidy, collect toll fee, increase tax etc, they compare us to developed countries like USA , UK, Germany ETC. But when they want to do poo like postponing election without reasons, lack of security and all sort, they compare us with the countries that crawls. Politics has really destroyed the reasoning faculty of some people.