All eyes must be on the Jean Adukwei Mensah-led EC in 2024

Constitutionally, the Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) is not a beneficiary of electoral victory in any election, but rather the political Parties. As the arbiter for political contests, the EC must always be transparent and neutral in all actions and decisions, but not seem to be clandestinely taking sides.

It is thus baffling to observe the belligerent posture of the Jean Mensah-led EC in relation to dialoguing with political Parties to seek durable answers for divergent views from political actors as of 2020 till date.

The actions of this current EC boss led to the boycott of the largest Opposition NDC Party in the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), which is highly unfortunate!

It was under this Jean-Mensah-led EC that Ghana witnessed almost a dozen casualties for the first time in the Fourth Republic during the collation of the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary results in Techiman South and other parts of the country.

The public image of the current EC is at all time low now and it is a recipe for electoral catastrophe if care is not taken in the upcoming General elections this year.

The prevailing poor image of this current EC would have been salvaged in 2021 if Madam Jean Mensah had taken the Witness box in the 2020 Presidential petition to address crucially vital questions from venerable Lawyer Tsatsu Tsikata on massive electoral irregularities before, during and after the declaration of the Presidential results.

As an Election Year for over 64 countries globally including Ghana going into national elections in 2024, there is a lot at stake for political actors and particularly for Ghana, where the stakes are so high indeed!

The conduct of the District and Unit Committee (DUC) elections on 19^th December 2023 with avoidable challenges is making me believe that the current EC and her Commissioners have not adequately learnt useful lessons going into the crucial General elections in 2024.

I have a few rhetorical questions for the Jean Mensah-led EC to ponder over as we prepare for the upcoming national elections on December 7, 2024:

1. How on earth should the EC, with no or limited consultations with key electoral stakeholders, decide on the exclusion of indelible ink in the voting process in the DUC elections?
2. Why is it that Madam Jean Mensah and her EC team not visibly bothered about the high possibility of double voting and undermining the importance of the use of edible ink in our young democracy?
3. For those whose fingerprints cannot be captured by the Biometric Verification Device (BVDs) for various reasons and must be manually verified, how can the EC easily identify evil-minded persons who may want to vote twice in the General elections without the use of indelible ink on a Voter?
4. Is the EC aware that in the just-ended DUC elections, some new BVDs used can allow the same person to vote again or engage in double voting?
5. How come the EC decided to reduce its number of staff per polling station from about 6 to 3 staff for the same workload in the DUC elections? Will this staff reduction witnessed in the just-ended DUC elections be implemented in the General elections and if so, why?
6. It does appear to me that the EC has not learnt any useful lessons in the subsequent elections. Why is it that known recurrent electoral problems such as unreliable means of transporting voting materials to polling stations on time, malfunction of BVDs, postponement of some DUC elections, etc. are still happening?
7. Did I hear the EC suggesting closing the upcoming Presidential and Parliamentary elections at 3:00 O’clock instead of 5:00 O’clock? Why is that? And what mechanisms are available to so?
8. Dr. Asare Bossman, one of the deputy Commissioners at the EC was heard to have said that the DUC elections are highly complex to conduct even more than the Presidential and Parliamentary elections. Does Dr. Bossman want Ghanaians to believe him for what he is saying?
9. Is it that the EC is trying to test the ground on questionable ways and means to sway the outcome of both the Parliamentary and Presidential elections in the upcoming General elections?
10. Does this Jean Mensah-led EC know that poorly conducted national elections can lead to devastating consequences including destabilization of a state, loss of innocent lives and property, etc. across the globe?

The last thing that the EC should do is to further cause public distrust in the work they do in these upcoming vitally crucial national elections in Ghana.

The appalling public image of the EC should be redeemed through self-examination and satisfactory delivery before and on the day of elections, December 7, 2024, to allow citizens choose the next political leaders to deliver transformative development for the good of our country.

We, all as citizens but not spectators, have an arduous task and responsibility to hold this belligerent Jean Mensah-led EC to account and demand better national elections come December 7, 2024.

Let us not leave everything to the largest Opposition NDC Party to seek accountability and transparency from the EC! The Jean Mensah-led EC should not knowingly or unknowingly stand in the way of the Electorates to choose their next leaders freely and fairly.

Our dear country, Ghana deserves better than what we electorally experienced in four years ago, and all eyes must be on Madam Jean Mensah and her deputy Commissioners as we get closer to the General elections on December 7, 2024.