Once Bitten Twice Shy

Dr Kwadwo Afari Gyan, EC Boss
The integrity of the Electoral Commission (EC) has never been so shaken as in the aftermath of the last general elections.

The subsequent revelations spawned by the Supreme Court hearing and the eventual judgment into the petition lodged by some citizens, robbed the Commission of a sizeable quantity of reverence and trust.

A re-engineering of sorts to restore public confidence in the agency was never thought of, let alone implemented ruefully. In the absence of a damage control schedule any project that seeks to question the sincerity of the leadership of the Commission further should be obviated as we make do with the wobbling election machine.

The EC should be the last institution at this time in the electoral history of the country to want to apply opaqueness in its dealings with its major publics, the political parties that represent the voting citizenry.

Unfortunately, the EC appears to be readying itself for a journey towards a goal which could spell doom for democracy and all that it stands for and deny it the remaining flesh on its integrity bones.

In a situation where the appetite for a resort to the Supreme Court for adjudication into election disputes has all but disappeared – the result of non-confidence – the EC must be seen to be inclining towards transparency by all means.

In the past few days, news about the EC's decision to augment the roll call of polling stations to, as the Commission explained, reduce pressure on the existing ones – something which the largest opposition is digesting with a large volume of salt – has been in the air.

The sneering which greeted the announcement and any subsequent novelty contemplated by the Commission is sufficient gauge of how much most Ghanaians do not trust their independent election management machine.

We have no reason to question the fears of the largest opposition party and the rest of the country, given what the country went through in the last elections, especially the near-tipping point we got to.

Mr. Boakye Agyarko hit the bull's eye with his remarks a few days ago on a radio programme when he pointed out that 'the Supreme Court has effectively closed its doors to the resolution of election disputes'.

While such a closure sounds ominous in a democracy, the conclusion was doubtlessly informed by the bitter experience of the landmark petition hearing.

The EC announcement as a source of justifiable angst should have been worked at with the parties' involvement.

Let the Commission avoid the tendency to do things on the blind side of Ghanaians, especially the political parties.