Some political problems need a crude fix. Nigeria got one in 1999 when it returned to imperfect democracy after decades of ethnic strife and military rule. At that time, Christians from the south of the country feared being shut out of power by the more numerous Muslims of the north. To reassure them, the bosses of Nigeria's dominant party-which, in this flawed democracy, runs the show-set up a system of presidential rotation known as "zoning". Candidates are picked alternately from north and south behind closed doors and presented to voters in rigged polls.
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