Former
President Goodluck Jonathan said yesterday that the PDP remains the biggest and
strongest party to beat in the 2019 general elections.
He
said that the party’s defeat at the 2015 general elections was a minor and
temporary setback, which he said will not affect its chances in 2019.
Speaking
when he received a delegation of the PDP Strategy and Inter-Party Affairs
Committee, led by Prof. Jerry Gana, in his residence in Abuja, yesterday,
Jonathan called for the strengthening of democratic institutions in the
country.
“PDP
is still the biggest and the strongest party. Irrespective of what happened in
the 2015 general elections, yes, we lost the presidential election but that
doesn’t diminished us; every other party still knows that PDP is a leading
party.
“Losing
the presidency is something temporary; we should be able to get that position
back as long as we are able to get our act together. I am happy that you people
are working towards that,” he said.
The
former president, who received a copy of the committee’s report, however,
advocated the use of more statutory delegates for the party’s primaries to
check imposition of candidates in future elections.
“Direct
primaries is the ultimate, it is the best way of selecting candidates but the
greatest problem society has is how to manage direct primaries.
“I
will say that if you cannot do direct primaries, let us make sure that we
increase the number of statutory delegates; people who have held offices in the
party at different levels, even if it is the level of counselors,” the former
president said.
Jonathan
added: “I am among the persons who believe that for a nation to grow, the
institutions must be very strong, just like you mentioned about INEC. There is
no way a nation will grow with weak institutions because everything about
politics is about the people, not about the individuals.
“And
as long as you are interested in the people, you are also interested in the
growth of the society, and the development of the nation,” he said.
Dailytrust
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