Electoral Bestiality

The dog that is fated to lose its way in the bush will remain deaf to the hunters whistle. - Prof. Wole Soyinka

The Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has always maintained that until political parties and their supporters accept to conduct themselves orderly, peacefully and lawfully, during elections, it will be difficult for the EC to guarantee free, fair and peaceful elections.

That is what happened at Atiwa during the by-election at the end of last month.

Whereas both the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) have commended the professionalism, commitment and dedication of the officials of the EC in the conduct of the polls, we cannot say that the process was free, fair and peaceful.

It is a matter of regret that, despite the diffused presence of security personnel, there were incidents of violence, ostensibly ignited by the presence of machomen.

Even as the two major parties blame each other for bringing the hoodlums, they have both failed to admit their own contribution to the violence.

Worse still, the media did not help matters as they appeared to have failed to cross check their facts and information which came their way.

The desire to be first clouded the need for verification of facts. In other instances, the media exaggerated the developments, including the report that one death had been recorded, which could have incensed the hoodlums and the youth of the area to run riot.

We must be grateful to God that no mortality was recorded, but it is most regrettable that the police seem to have presented contradictory statements from their observation of the same event.

Whilst the Eastern Regional Police Commander, DCOP Ransford Moses Ninson, admitted that the police received a report about an incident involving the vehicle of the NDC Women’s Organiser, Ms Anita De Sooso and injuries to some persons, he maintained that Ms De Sooso did not make any formal report to the police.

On the other hand, the Director of Operations at the Police Headquarters, DCOP Kudualor, insisted that the police had no record of the accident, but the report they had was the destruction of the vehicle of Ms De Sooso by a mob at Abomosu.

When senior police officers give such contradictions, that arouses concern and undermines public trust in the police.

The expectation is that these top personnel would have conferred before responding to media enquiries to ensure proper co-ordination of intelligence reports.

This is crucial because the concomitant of such human errors is that the police will be seen to be acting in different directions or being manipulated.

The two top police commanders were not under any duress to speak to the media and it would not have been anything if when reached, they would have responded that they were in the process of analysing intelligence information and would come out accordingly.

Another issue that must be of concern, is the allegation that the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, who is the chairman of the Regional Security Committee, ordered the police not to search a group of people contrary to prior arrangement to search all persons entering and leaving the Atiwa area, for as many times as such persons entered or exited.

For now, even as the NDC and NPP trade accusations and counter accusations while denying their own involvement, it has emerged that some machomen were at Atiwa, whether organised or on their own to defend the interests of their respective parties and resist rigging.

As to how such groups intended to carry out their objectives without offending the law or disturbing the orderly conduct of the polls must be a bother to all of us.

This is where national security cannot escape blame.

The police might have done their best, but that was not enough because some hoodlums came to Atiwa, disturbed the peace without the police having a firm grip on the security, which necessitated other individuals taking the law into their own hands, either by mounting road blocks or running a vehicle into a crowd.

The bottom-line is that, the government has responsibility to ensure the full protection of Ghanaians.

The government has a duty to promote the security and safety of all Ghanaians at all times. Our security and safety must be safeguarded. When that fails, the government cannot escape liability.

The fact must be established that, when the police requested for the massive deployment of more than 1,200 security personnel, the objective must have been wider than protecting the ballot-boxes and those around the polling centres.

It should have encompassed the security and safety of all those who found themselves within the Atiwa district.

And if in security circles, a certain percentage of casualty is permitted or tolerable, for which the security operatives have patted themselves, the general public must never be made to see an election as an emergency or war.

To us, therefore, no little infraction in an election process can or must ever be tolerated or justified.

Accordingly, all the reported incidents of violence, whether reported formally to the police or otherwise, must be thoroughly investigated for the necessary response measures aimed at protecting the integrity of our electoral process and dealing resolutely with such hoodlums who are plain sadists and nation wreckers.

It does not matter whose ox is gored. Ghana must be the beneficiary.

More importantly, the time has come for us to define who has authority to move from one electoral area to another during elections.

The Electoral Commission, not the President, Parliament nor political party leaders and activists, has the sole authority to manage elections.

Indeed, agents of the candidates and monitors, including journalists, have to be accredited before they can move around electoral areas.

Therefore, the situation where party leaders and activists swarm the electoral areas and move around with careless abandon, as if they are super agents with limitless right to monitor the process must be checked and regulated.

Party agents are to remain at the polling stations where they are accredited. Election observers must not act as if they are supervisors to the electoral officers appointed by the EC.

The point is, where voters are enjoined to cast their votes and leave the polling station and return at a distance to observe the counting of ballots, those who do not have the franchise in the particular polling centre must be disenabled from moving in and out of the station on the alibi of checking electoral fraud or protecting the interest of their parties.

During the NPP era, the level of violence during the by-election at Asawase destroyed all the claims we made about the right of the electorate to decide who represented them.

Years on, we seem not to have learnt anything, since the by-elections in Akwatia, Chereponi and Atiwa, have shattered any optimism that Jirapa might have given us.

When President John Evans Atta Mills went to the Synagogue Church in Nigeria to give thanks to God for winning the 2008 presidential poll, Prophet T. B. Joshua entreated him to ensure that elections under his leadership are conducted in free, fair, open and peaceful manner.

The violence at these constituencies must warn all of us to take the necessary steps to ensure that we redeem our image and integrity when it comes to giving meaning to universal suffrage as we won the heart of the world with the peaceful handover of government, with the slimmest of margins on January 7, 2009. Otherwise, the wrath of God may be against us.

The fact that at the end of voting, both the NPP and NDC gathered at the collation centre and waited for the EC to declare the results, means that the presence of the machomen did not mean much to the electoral success.

That is why we have a duty, first as Ghanaians, as political party members, activists and functionaries, as leaders of diverse sources and as a government, to stem this tide of bestiality that seems to be enmeshing and engulfing us in the conduct of elections.