A few countries combine their presidential elections with a so-called distribution requirement, which requires candidates to gain a regional spread of votes, in addition to an absolute majority, before they can be declared duly elected. In Indonesia, which held its first direct presidential elections in 2004, a successful presidential and vice-presidential candidate team needed to gain an absolute majority of the national vote and at least 20 per cent of the vote in over half of all provinces to avoid a second round of voting. This requirement was inspired by Nigeria, another large and regionally diverse country, where presidential candidates need not only to win an absolute majority of the vote nationally but also to secure at least one-third of the vote in at least two-thirds of the country’s provinces.
Distribution requirements do have the benefit of encouraging presidential candidates to make appeals outside their own regional or ethnic base, and if appropriately applied can work very well. However, the specification of two requirements for victory always carries the possibility that no candidate will fulfil both. It is important that designers note this possibility and include provisions to resolve it, because a system which produces no winner and no method of finding a winner could create a vacuum of power fraught with the dangers of instability. The second round in Indonesia merely requires a simple majority for the winner to be declared elected, but Nigeria retains the distribution requirement for the second round too, which creates the possibility of a third round. If this were to take place in practice, it could have implications both for the length of the election period and for the financial and administrative resources required. Distribution requirements introduce strategic imperatives for candidates. In Kenya, to be elected president, a candidate has to receive a plurality overall and at least 25 per cent of the vote in at least five out of the eight provinces. Even so, throughout the 1990s, a divided opposition allowed Daniel Arap Moi to remain president with less than an absolute majority of the vote. Distribution requirements can also be built into nomination requirements.
