Reuters
31 March 2011
* Incumbent is favourite in presidential race
* Ruling party seen weaker in parliament, state votes
* Violence has marred campaigning in some areas
By Nick Tattersall
LAGOS, March 31 (Reuters) - Nigeria embarks on general elections on Saturday which could reshape its political landscape, weakening the decade-long dominance of its ruling party and breaking a history of rigged and violent polls.
Africa's most populous nation votes over three successive Saturdays for a new parliament, president and state governors respectively, all of them set to be fiercely contested races.
President Goodluck Jonathan is seen as the front-runner in the presidential race, but the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) is expected to see its parliamentary majority and some of its regional control weaken.
The build-up to the vote has risked exposing ethnic and religious faultlines in the country of 150 million people, roughly split between a Muslim north and Christian south but with sizeable minorities living in both regions.
There have been isolated bomb attacks on campaign rallies, riots in the state of Akwa Ibom on the edge of the oil-producing Niger Delta, a series of targeted killings in the remote northeast blamed on a radical Islamist sect, and sectarian clashes in the central "Middle Belt" in recent weeks.
But in other areas, observers have seen less evidence of politicians arming gangs to intimidate and harass voters than in the run-up to the last polls in 2007, and the electoral commission hopes tighter voting procedures will help stamp out the widespread ballot-stuffing and fraud of the past.
"This election is already fundamentally better than both previous elections," said Chris Newsom, an adviser to civil society group Stakeholder Democracy Network in the Niger Delta.
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