The Need For Proper Planning For Election Conduct In Ghana

On Friday, 27th February 2015, the Supreme Court declared the District Level Elections (DLE) which was scheduled for 3rd March 2015 unconstitutional and asked the Electoral Commission (EC) to restart the process. Since the ruling, many individuals and organisations have expressed their opinion on the attitude of the EC towards the DLE. It may be recalled that the conduct of the DLE in 2010 suffered serious operational lapses as a results of which the elections (called tot-tot elections- meaning piecemeal approach) were conducted on separate days in various parts of the country.

There are people in Ghana today who believe that the EC does not attach the same seriousness to the DLE as they do to the presidential and parliamentary elections. Others also attribute the lapses to incompetence, complacency and yet to others it is nothing but sheer arrogance and impunity with which the EC flouts the laws of Ghana. These are opinions that the Centre for African Democratic Affairs (CADA) is unable to deny or confirm.

In the light of the recently annulled process of the DLE however, CADA is of a firm belief that part of the problem could be attributed to lack of proper planning by the EC. Good planning has been the backbone of every successful Electoral Management Body (EMB) all over the world. Elections may appear very simple exercise to many people but not so. The lack of planning along the electoral cycle starting with the Legal Framework (design and drafting of laws/legislation) can easily ruin any electoral process. Ghana has a four year electoral cycle for both DLE and presidential and parliamentary elections.

The two elections are held two years after holding either of them. This means that whether it is DLE or presidential and parliamentary elections, the EC has at least two good years to plan and implement either of these elections. When an election is completed, it is expected that the EC will review the process and then draw an election calendar on yearly basis detailing the activities to be undertaken within the year and its timelines depending on which of the elections is upcoming.

Once an election date is set, the election calendar is drawn by working back the dates for the various activities expected to be undertaken within the year bearing in mind the legal regime and reasonable amount of time required for each activity. This ought to be a public document that relevant stakeholders of the elections should have access to for their planning and monitoring as well.

When the elections calendar is drawn, it allows for easy monitoring to ensure no activity suffers any avoidable delay or setback. It also gives the government an idea of activities expected within the year and consequently makes provision for funds or go sourcing for funds even before the EC presents its budget. In this case, government will have no excuse to delay the release of funds for electoral activities.

Regarding the recently annulled DLE process, if there was a calendar with clear timelines, the Constitutional Instrument (CI) would have been laid on time and there wouldn't have been the need for parliament to have extra days of sitting in order to have the CI mature on time for the conduct of the elections. By the laws of Ghana, end of nominations to the Election Day should not be more than 90 days and not less than 30 days. With this provision, any astute planner would plan his work in such a way to take advantage of the 90 day provision. This allows the EC to postpone the close of nominations, if necessary, and yet have enough time to implement other processes leading to the conduct of the elections.

It became disturbingly apparent during the Supreme Court proceedings that the CI 85 was only for the demarcation of electoral area and unit committee boundaries and that there was no law or regulation governing the conduct of the DLE. As a result, the Supreme Court ordered the EC to ensure the necessary laws are put in place for the conduct of the DLE.

CADA would like to ask as to what was the legal basis on which the EC began the whole DLE process.

CADA acknowledges that there is an existing regulation for the conduct of the unit committee elections but one wonders if same can be said about the DLE. The EC has over the years been using the regulations for the presidential and parliamentary elections for the conduct of the DLE in spite of the fact that the two elections are different.

If an experienced EMB like the EC of Ghana would not take planning seriously, it is bound to make such elementary mistakes and also overlook critical elements of the electoral process and thereby blatantly flout the laws of the nation, causing pain to the people who invest in the process and also causing financial loss to the country.

CADA does not expect the seven-member commission to be directly responsible for the yearly plan of electoral activities. The EC has ten experienced regional directors and their deputies and at least six directors at the head office to handle this plan with ease. This must be a routine activity for these technocrats and the EC cannot excuse itself if, today in Ghana, we do not have yearly election calendar.

CADA urges the EC to take planning of electoral activities seriously to avoid 'crisis management' which has characterised the implementation of electoral processes in recent times in Ghana. With proper policy guidelines from the commission, coupled with the necessary coordination of efforts and activities, and inclusive conversation between the commission and the directorate these electoral lapses with the attendant waste of scarce public funds would be avoided.