Excessive partisanship will undermine Ghana's democracy - Political scientist

A Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana says excessive partisanship could undermine Ghana's fragile democracy.

Dr Evans Aggrey- Darkoh contributing discussions disagreements over Ghana electoral roll on MultiTV/Joy FM news analysis programme, Newsfile on Saturday said 'there must be a basic consensus on some of the critical things that will govern our lives. I was thinking that something as fundamental as credible voter's register [would] not divide us at all.'

The two major political parties in the country, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have had divergent views on the credibility of the current voter's register.

While the NPP which believes the register is fundamentally and therefore calls for a new one, the NDC, on the other hand, has maintained that the electoral roll is credible and must not be changed.

Some citizens, Evans Nimako and a former Youth Organiser of the People's National Convention (PNC), Abu Ramadan filed a suit at the Supreme Court (SC) contesting the credibility of the register. They singled out the use of health insurance cards as a source document for registering to vote in the 2012 election as a major sticking point. The registrations were declared unconstitutional in 2014.

The plaintiffs went back to the apex court to seek clarification on a judgement it made that names of unqualified persons be removed from the register in May 2016.

The Supreme Court after chastising the Electoral Commission on June 23, for its apathy towards its judgement, ordered that by June 29, the commission should furnish it with a full list of persons who registered with National Health Insurance Scheme cards and a detailed plan on how it will delete those names from the roll and have them reregistered properly.

The Commission has stated that it will beat the deadline to produce the list despite a prediction by pressure group Let My Vote Count Alliance that it will be unable to.

Listing some cases that the Supreme Court has pronounced judgement on, Dr Aggrey-Darkoh indicated that the apex court of Ghana by its judgement on the Abu Ramadan case has broadened the scope of the country's democracy.

He said if the Commission had taken steps to solve some issues which were raised about the electoral roll following the post-elections court battle, 'we wouldn't be where we are."

Dr Aggrey-Darkoh believes that if the country has decided that democracy 'should be the only game in town, behaviorally, attitudinal and constitutionally, then we should have a consensus on what really must be a credible voters' register.'

Whilst recognising that the EC enjoys some level of independence, he said: "the Commission owes it a duty to be much more responsive to the needs and concerns of Ghanaians."

"...In all of these, we must still engage the system vigorously at the same time trusting that we have institutions which are capable because the EC is an election management body which has been able to deliver two power alternations [and] cannot be demonised. We need to still give it the chance and of course support it to deal with what it ought to deal with," he added.

Story by Ghana| Myjoyonline.com| Akosua Asiedua Akuffo| [email protected]