President Jonathan said at the end of January that he plans to serve for only one term if elected at the April 9th presidential poll, a declaration that could help appease some of his political opponents in the north. Mr Jonathan, a southerner who inherited office after Umaru Yar'Adua, a northerner, died last year during his first term in office, would constitutionally be entitled to seek re-election in 2015, but the prospect of this happening would further alienate those northern politicians who wanted the People's Democratic Party (PDP) to select a northern candidate for the 2011 election, in accordance with a zoning arrangement that rotates power between the north and south of the country every two terms. Mr Jonathan is expected to win in April, largely because of the advantages of incumbency as well as the failure of opposition parties to agree on a joint candidate to face the ruling party, which has dominated Nigerian politics since the outset of the Fourth Republic in 1999. However, while Mr Jonathan's proclamation may take some of the sting out of any potential northern backlash to his selection for the 2011 election, the Economist Intelligence Unit suspects that the situation could be different by 2015. Four years is a long time in Nigerian politics and if the president is able to start moving the reform process in the right direction and build upon his general popularity, he may well change his mind on the issue of re-election in order to try and finish the job, calculating that he will be in a strong enough position to face down any challenge from his opponents in the north without risking party unity too much.