Tackling The Challenges Of Election In Ghana

Touted as a model for the practice of modern democracy in Africa, the resilience of how solid Ghana’s democracy is would be put to the test once again come November 7, 2016. The country adopted for itself the practice of democracy with the promulgation of the 1992 constitution, which came into force 1993. The country ever since has proven to really grasp what it takes to satisfy the requirements of the practice.

It has since the general elections of 1992, moved on to organized a relative five successive elections. In spite of the obvious envious feat chalked over the decade with regards to the organization of credible free and fair elections, the electoral process cannot be overly rated to have fully arrived yet. The untold realties are that, the comparisons have been with fellow African States, who seem to be grumbling with the practice over the years. In the country’s bid to rub shoulders with advance democracies like the United States, Britain and a host of many others. It is advisable efforts are made to tackle identified challenges before they degenerate into something untoward.

Indeed, the advanced democracies being alluded to, others might argue are yet to arrive either, and certainly have had challenges of their own, but the overt nature of the challenges as it pertains to Ghana’s still maturing democracy, certainly affords the country no chance of sweeping issues under the carpet as if all is well. Several or bits of the challenges faced by the Ghanaian electoral system were brought to bear during the 2012 electoral petition hearing.

And the way forward in the words of former UN Secretary General is, as a nation “We must not be blind to the flaws in our electoral system that the judicial review has brought to light” It is such a critical situation which demands for concerns from all, who hold the peace of the county Ghana at heart. It is this concern, I believe that has premised the argument over the years that, between the peace the country has enjoyed till now and war is a thin line. If this is the case, what do we have to do as a people?

I believe now is the time to wake up to the challenges that face us and confront them. With barely seven months to the November 2016 elections, This article would set the basis for the need for more consented efforts to tackle the situation by opening the country, stakeholders, likewise donor communities to the challenges that stare us in the face as a country.  What then are the challenges going forward? This discussion as much as possible gives the theme a more holistic treatment from the perspective of the period before, during and after elections.

The discussion should better be understood from this point because, according to the Kofi Annan International Peace Training Center (KAIPTC), elections 2012 categorized under these three phase of the electoral process revealed that, the pre-election recorded 57.7 percent of violent incidents, while as the election and the period after recorded 30 and 12.2 percent respectively.

For a better understanding, the challenges could better be spread under three broad topics, thus, institutional, human and technological. Under institutional, the consideration should be focused on, how empowered the electoral commission, security agencies like the Police, civil society groups are to lend their support and live up to their responsibilities in order that, no stone is left unturned in getting the right thing done.

Our institutions, especially the security agencies were very much exposed in the period prior to elections 2012 that, they failed woefully in their duty to analyze “secret tapes” purported to have reveal grand schemes by certain political actors within the NPP and NDC to subvert the electoral process. In my opinion, there should be better reasons for these cases that were widely reported to be left on attended to. These agencies per the sensitive nature of their responsibilities to the state are ideally expected to be non-bias. This unfortunately is not the reality.

Many culprits in the past have been left off the hook because of their political affiliations. If this becomes the normative, then the citizenry begin to develop a sense of mistrust in the services rendered by these agencies. People in the long run would take issues into their own hands because of the feeling that these security agencies are not credible enough to deliver their services devoid of fear and favor.

This invariably is a threat to the services these agencies are constitutionally mandated to offer the larger public especially in times of milestone events like elections. Though I do not seek to justify the use of thugs and “macho” men in policing or protecting whether election materials or a political interest, it can be argued that, this situation as widespread exist because of this general mistrust held by the public.

The media space arguably poses a greater threat. The media space now than ever has become an avenue for political actors to engage each other in endless banters. This, more than often has resulted in unwarranted exchanges that are a likely recipe for inciting their respective followers against each other. Credited as one of the few countries that strictly uphold media freedom to its apex, it is no surprise that, the media field now attracts so much investment.

The landscape has been proliferated with so many television and radio stations. If the saying that “to him that much is given much is expected is true,” then as a responsible country, now is the time we have to churn efforts into drafting policies that should serve as guide to regulate the works of these media outlets. The influx of the social media platforms seems to have placed the fight beyond reach.

Political activists have chance on the unregulated nature of the medium to churn out certain untrue information, which on majority of cases borders on the sensitive nature of maintaining the relative peace the country enjoys. It would be very unfortunate to assume an adamant posture and do nothing to curtail the enormous challenges the social media platform poses to the peace of the country in the 2016 elections. The statistics are that, as of November 15, 2015; there were as many as 2,900,000.00 Ghanaians registered on face book alone.

It may be true that the figure could be halved for users on other equally vibrant ones like instagram and twitter. It is worth noting that the Ghanaian now than never relies so much on social media for information. And if what happened during elections 2012 is anything to go by, then it only means many Ghanaians would depend on social media sites like face book and twitter for results from the various voting centers come November 7, 2016.

However, it appears the unregulated nature of these sites would pose a serious challenge to the country if issues are not taken seriously. Many in current times have used the social media platform to spread hoax which nearly, if not, has sent the whole country into some state of confusion. An example of the threat if care is not taken, an unregulated social media platform poses is the case of the claimed circulation from the office of the President, which went viral earlier this year announcing a ministerial reshuffle, only for us to be informed hours after that there was no reshuffle as purported by the circulation. Another sensitive issue for consideration is the source of funding of our political parties.

Politics is now money, and essentially without money, no one can survive the beauty of the gigantic billboards, flayers and the lots that are common with the season. I have not forgotten what it takes to get an endorsement from the so called celebrities. And I doubt anyone of them endorse for a song. This is money. So the question is, where do our politicians get the monies to finance their activities? What do I mean by their activities?

By this, I make reference to campaigning, rallies, campaign songs or tunes and the lots. When it comes to funding activities of political parties like campaigns or administrative duties, the realities are that, parties might be forced to solicit for financial support beyond national borders. The dangers are that most of these supports come with strings attached to them. This eventually has led to the numerous cases of abuse of incumbency and its accompanying corruption. Now is the time for regulation. Why the need to regulate political source of funding?

In the wisdom of the advocates of regulating political source of funds, regulations are necessary in that, it would help to safeguard the political process from unnecessary foreign interest and interference. The shared believe also is that in regulating the sources of funding, the national interest shall be protected from falling into criminal hands. The absence of such regulations has led to the situation where parties, both old and new to search for more lucrative sources of financing, especially from external private sector sources in exchange for investment opportunities as well as leverage on the international scene.

Worst, is the possibility of entanglement of political parties with the international, domestic and regional criminal community. The benefits of a regulation of a kind are transparency, limitation on political discretion and the opportunity of creating a political environment built on greater accountability and a consolidated democratic practice. To be able to arrive at this aim, the various national legislative bodies, civil society groups and the donor community ought to help the country in the drafting and passing into law of a law to regulate how political parties source for funds now and the in the future.

The Institute of Economic Affairs -Ghana have also suggested that, for the country to be able to fight such tendencies in the future, a consented effort should be taken to implement the Akosombo 2 declaration on enhanced public support for political parties. It further advocated the establishment of political party’s support, which would be used to support the activities of these political parties. On top of the list is the Electoral Commission with its bits of challenges.

It is not only faced with the problem of funding, but staffing and the difficulty in winning the trust of the people. Yes, there are still masses out there that cannot and do not keep trust in the abilities of the commission to organize a credible free and fair election. But whatever the mistrust, we should not lose sight of the fact that, it is this same commission that has seen us through all these years. Our neighbors have even trust in the abilities of the commission to have in times past sort for their advice in their given situations, why not we ourselves?

I believe the commission like never before shall deliver. But the EC definitely cannot do it alone, therefore there is the need we lend our supports to this common cause. The issue of trust, I think emanates from the power vested in a single party President to appoint who heads the commission at a point in time. But the President I trust cannot make a decision that would not favor the country.

Samuel Tettey, the Director of Elections at the EC, revealed that experience gathered from the NPP and the NDC primaries showed the commission has a crucial challenge of malfunctioning of biometric equipment ahead of the 2016 general elections. My simple opinion, it is man that made the machine, and what man expects the machine to do, man himself can better do. And it is simply lies in our sense of loving and doing right. Our yes should be a yes and no, a no. No matter how perfect the machine can be, it cannot beat the perfection of man.

These are far reaching exposition on what lies ahead of the country come November 7, 2016. The fact of the case is simple; the world is watching and has a full expectation that the country does not fail this time round. The former chief of the Nigeria Electoral Commission, Professor Attahiru Jega has urged the country to beat Nigeria by ensuring that, the forth coming elections are free, fair and credible.

At the 25th anniversary celebration of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Prof Jega attributed at length that, Nigeria did not disappoint in staging a very successful, peaceful, free, fair and credible elections. He urged that the country used the Nigeria elections as the standard in convincing the world. If the Nigerian experience is anything to go by, then it is prudent the country considers all the necessary reforms that their system was allowed to experience in other to replicate a similar feat come November 7th.

The world is watching to once more applaud us for the success we have enjoyed since the birth of our democracy. And in making it, we must be informed that even the slightest of effort counts! As religious as we are, I cannot end without saying God bless our homeland.