The Ghanaian News
41
October 2012
Frankly Speaking
The 2012 Elections in Ghana: Electoral Commission’s Credibility is on Line!
By Dr. Michael Baffoe, Winnipeg Ghana is gearing upfor Parliamentary and Presidential elections this December. This is our fourth attempt at holding “democratic” elections since military dictatorships ended in 1992. Under the Fourth Republican Constitution promulgated in 1992, we have had five elections in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008. The forth-coming in December 2012 will be the sixth in the series of our democratic experiment. The past five elections, although not very perfect in terms of organization and credibility, have been relatively peaceful. There have been incidents (stolen and stuffed ballot boxes and papers, inflation of voters’ register etc), but compared to what our neighbours in other parts of Africa have undergone, we in Ghana have been living in heaven. We have always managed before, during and after these past elections, to hold the country together. We have restrained ourselves and prevented our dear nation from slipping into the mayhem that our neighbours have subjected themselves to with very unpleasant outcomes. As a collective, Ghanaians have commended themselves for making the above happen. In the process the Electoral Commission has taken a lot of credit for organizing these elections although their performances have engineered some suspicion and failing grades at times. Ghana’s Electoral Commissioner, my former Political Science professor at the University of Ghana, Legon, has earned a very positive reputation as one of the “top” electoral commissioners in the world. Having “earned” this positive reputation, we all expect that every action of the Electoral Commissioner and his outfit will be above board and devoid of any suspicions. The coming elections in December 2012 are critical for a number of reasons: Firstly, we have had a sitting president die in
office six months to the end of his term. His successor will be in office for only five months by the time the new elections are held. He is determined not to create the unenviable record for the history books as the most short-lived Presidency in Ghana’s history. He is therefore determined to win at all costs. Again the political party that he leads, the National Democratic Congress, (NDC) is in no way prepared to give up power even if they lose the elections. They have been making some noise with a strange logic about the fact that they were in power for two terms, 1993 to 1997, and 1997 to 2001 and they handed over power to the NPP. They claim that they (NDC) allowed the NPP to be in power for two terms, 2001 to 2005 and 2005 t0 2009. Going by this screwed logic, they claim, it is now their turn to also stay in power for two terms. Ha! ha! ha! This twisted logic shows that they are not really keen on giving up power under any circumstances and will therefore do anything to stay in power. There is on the other side, the NPP which is determined to retrieve the power they painfully lost to the NDC in 2008. Although they were gracious in defeat and made history as one of the few African governments in power that lost an election by a close margin and peacefully handed over power to an opposition party, they are strongly determined not to lose again come December. The above scenarios show that none of the two major protagonists
have any intention of giving up easily in the electoral fight ahead. So much noise has been made over the past one year in Ghana about the need for “peaceful” elections this year. A closer look at the people calling for peaceful elections, especially the NDC, shows that they have a different interpretation and meaning of “peaceful”. They preach peace but most of the actions they have been taking sit on the opposite end of the “peace” ladder. To the NDC, peace is when their opponents shut up when they (NDC) misbehave. Peaceful elections to them, is when they win and no-one challenges the process and outcomes. The above dangerous portents therefore place on the shoulders of the Electoral Commission an onerous responsibility to ensure that the process for the elections, are transparent, devoid of any suspicions and any process that is screwed in favour of one party or another. H o w e v e r, t h e behaviour of the Electoral Commission headed by my former political Science Professor, Dr. Afari Djan over the past one year, raises a lot of worry and fear that the body that has been put in charge of ensuring a transparent, free and fair elections, and shall we say, “peaceful”, may itself be part of the problem of achieving the exact opposite of free, fair and transparent elections whose outcome will be acceptable to all. I will recount a few of the “misbehaviour” of the Electoral Commission over the past few months. Only six months to the Elections (since last July) the Electoral Commission decided that it was going to create as many as fortyfive new constituencies based on what it calls new electoral number increases from the census figures released by the Ghana Statistical Service. In the first place it is clear to everyone in Ghana that the figures released from the census were not credible. Assuming that they were,
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the Electoral Commission’s actions in trying to create these constituencies were suspicious. They were working closely with the government in power in preparing the grounds for the creation of these constituencies in areas that are likely to vote for the ruling party, the NDC. That was capital suspicion number one! Secondly, the time that the Electoral Commission is taking to embark on this very important exercise of creating new constituencies is simply too unrealistic: three months!!! For the past two months, many wellmeaning and opinion leaders in Ghana have been cautioning the Electoral Commission to hold off this exercise of creating new constituencies until after the coming elections so that it can have enough time to prepare the affected population groups. It has staunchly refused much to the cheer and delight of the ruling NDC and its government. Is this the body that is supposed to be “independent” and conduct lections in a transparent, free and fair manner? I seriously doubt their credibility. The next “misbehaviour” of the Electoral Commission came in the week of October 15 when the various political parties and their Presidential candidates were supposed to file their nomination papers with the Electoral Commission. Some of the political parties including the leader of the fledgling New Democratic Party (NDP) led by Mrs. Konadu Agyeman Rawlings decided to file their papers on the last day of the filing period on Thursday October 18, 2012. They arrived at the Electoral Commission offices around 4.00 P.M, according to media reports. The Commission’s officials took their papers, went into their offices for over half an hour and came back to tell the NDP officials around 4.45 P.M that certain portions of the forms were not properly
filled out. These forms were designed by the Electoral Commission so going by common sense, which we know sometimes is not so common, the Electoral Commission officials should have sat down with the party officials and guided them as to how to fill these forms. The NDP officials returned to the Electoral Commission’s offices at 5.00 P.M only to be told that nominations closed at 5.00 P.M, so their party and candidate were disqualified from contesting the elections!!! What shameful nonsense!!! According to media reports, there were NDC supporters around the Electoral Commission offices who started cheering on this development. It is clear from all that has happened in Ghana over the past two years that there is bitter enmity between Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and the NDC. Tongues started wagging and rumours started flying that the NDP was disqualified by the Electoral Commission at the prompting of the NDC government. Although there is no hard evidence to back this up, the behaviour of the Electoral
Commissioner and his outfit over the past one year lends credence to this rumor and suspicions. It cast doubts and shadows on the credibility of the Electoral Commission to organize a free, fair, and transparent elections this December. For the avoidance of doubt and in the interest of full disclosure, I do not like Konadu Agyeman Rawlings. I don’t like her politics and that of her husband, J. J. Rawlings. But we are supposed to be living in a democracy. Everyone is entitled to a fair process and fair treatment. The treatment meted out to Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and her party by the Electoral Commission of Ghana raises a lot of suspicion and casts long shadows on the credibility of the Electoral Commission. The whole world is watching now. We will keep an eye on the conduct of Dr. Commissioner and his outfit. Now that they have done the suspected bidding of the NDC in taking Konadu Agyeman Rawlings out of the elections of 2012, what will be their next project?? We will be keenly watching and paying very close attention!!
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