2010 - WAEC Government Past Questions and Answers - page 4

Merits of one-party system:

(1) It helps in the establishment of stable administration which further helps in the progress of the country. The progress of the Soviet Union is a glaring example in this regard.

(2) In this system, formation and execution of long-term planning is possible.

(3) The country achieves remarkable economic progress as the Government ends the conflicts among all the classes and it devotes its entire energy, towards the increase of production in the country.

(4) The administration becomes efficient because all the powers are concentrated in the hands of one leader and there favouritism, nepotism and black-marketing are banished altogether.

(5) There is a unity and discipline in the country.

(6) Time is not wasted in unnecessary criticism and propaganda.

enfranchisement - a statutory right or privilege granted to a person or group by a government (especially the rights of citizenship and the right to vote)

Enfranchisement The act of making free (as from Slavery); giving a franchise or freedom to; investiture with privileges or capacities of freedom, or municipal or political liberty. Conferring the privilege of voting upon classes of persons who have not previously possessed such

A recall election (also called a recall referendum or representative recall) is a procedure by which, in certain polities, voters can remove an elected official from office through a direct vote before that official's term has ended.

Boundary delimitation (or simply delimitation) is the drawing of boundaries, particularly of electoral precincts, states, counties or other municipalities. In the context of elections, it can be called redistribution and is used to prevent unbalance of population across districts.

A plebiscite is the direct vote of all the members of an electorate on an important public question such as a change in the constitution.

A first-past-the-post (FPTP and sometimes abbreviated to FPP) electoral system is one in which voters indicate on a ballot the candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins. This is sometimes described as winner takes all. First-past-the-post voting is a plurality voting method. FPTP is a common, but not universal, feature of electoral systems with single-member electoral divisions, and is practiced in close to one third of countries. Notable examples include Canada, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as most of their current or former colonies and protectorates.

Civil servants must therefore be anonymous. And it follows from both of the above that civil servants cannot be held accountable for the success or otherwise of government policy, for otherwise their public explanations could contain criticisms of their political masters.

The loi-cadre ( Reform Act) was a French legal reform passed by the French National Assembly on 23 June 1956. It marked a turning point in relations between France and its overseas empire. Under pressure from independence movements in the colonies, the government transferred a number of powers from Paris to elected territorial governments in French African colonies and also removed remaining voting inequalities by implementing universal suffrage and abolishing the multiple electoral college system. It was the first step in the creation of the French Community, comparable to the British Commonwealth of Nations. Most French African colonies held elections under the new universal suffrage Loi Cadre system on 31 March 1957, the exceptions being Cameroon which held its election on 23 December 1956, and Togo which held its election on 17 April 1958. (Cameroon and Togo were United Nations mandated territories and so were on a different trajectory than the rest of French Africa).

Governors-general were British subjects, appointed on the advice of the British government, who acted as agents of the British government in each Dominion, as well as being representatives of the monarch. As such they notionally held the prerogative powers of the monarch, and also held the executive power of the country to which they were assigned. In these countries the governor-general acts as the monarch's representative, performing the ceremonial and constitutional functions of a head of state.