Towards Peaceful ’08 Elections - Six Parties Set Rules

SIX political parties which have declared their intentions to contest the 2008 general election have agreed on 20 key points for a violence-free poll.

In a communiqué issued at the end of a workshop at Elmina in the Central Region, the political parties called for an Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting to discuss the report of the committee that investigated the alleged bloated voters register in 13 constituencies in the Ashanti Region and for decisions on the matter to be published in the mass media.

The committee that investigated the allegation of the bloated voters register submitted its report to the Chairman of the Electoral Commission (EC) last Friday.

The stakeholders also urged the EC to take steps to register qualified but unregistered voters to ensure that the December 2008 elections were not adversely affected, stressing that “the EC must ensure that the final voters register is delivered to political parties at least three months before the elections”.

The communiqué urged the EC to provide lanterns and solar lamps at polling stations and collation centres as part of standby arrangements in the event of non-availability of electricity as part of the overall security arrangements for the elections.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the Convention People's Party (CPP), the People's National Convention (PNC), the Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere (EGLE) Party, the United Renaissance Party (URP), the Ghana National Party (GNP) and the United Love Party (ULP) were represented at the workshop on “ensuring peaceful and violence-free elections in 2008”.

It was organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and the National Peace Council (NPC).

The Electoral Commission (EC) and Netright, a non-governmental organisation, also participated in the workshop, which attracted speakers, including the General Manager Newspapers, of the Graphic Communications Group Limited, Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafo; a senior lecturer at GIMPA, Mr Kwamena Ahwoi; and Dr Nii Moi Thompson, an economist.

The communiqué called on the EC to consider alternatives to the current format of the ballot paper in order to avoid or reduce the large number of spoilt ballots.

It said the EC, in selecting election officials, should ensure that no known political activists were appointed and that the appointed officials were credible to conduct themselves professionally in order to ensure peaceful and violence-free elections.

The communiqué urged the courts to deal with election-related disputes expeditiously to prevent electoral disputants from taking the law into their own hands, when they perceive the Judiciary to be unwilling or delaying in administrative justice.

“In particular, the judiciary must seriously consider the proposal to establish a single elections petitions tribunal with the mandate to conclude all election dispute cases within a stipulated time frame,” it said.

The parties also called on the government to ensure that resources for the December 2008 elections were adequate and released timeously to the EC and other relevant agencies.

“Political parties, religious leaders, the media and civil society organisations must make strenuous efforts to educate the public about the risks of selling the country's democracy to the highest bidder if money is made the basis for voting for candidates and political parties,” it said.

It called on political parties to educate their members and supporters to also avoid the use of inflammatory and vile language that had the potency of triggering off violence.

The communiqué urged political party leaders to ensure that the spirit of friendship that characterised the relations between them at the leadership level triggered down to their members and supporters through appropriate channels in order to make them appreciate that competitive politics could be conducted in an atmosphere devoid of acrimony.

It asked political parties to leave the EC to declare and announce the final election results at the national level although it was acceptable for parties and the media to announce the results as and when they were declared by the EC officials at the polling stations and constituency levels.

It urged the media and civil society organisations to strive to be non-partisan in their dealings with the government and political parties and expose deceit and subterfuge in order not to fuel the embers of conflict to undermine peaceful elections.

The communiqué said while the media must ensure fair and unbiased reportage of political and electoral campaign activities in the run-up to the elections, “the state-owned media in particular must comply with the constitutional injunction to grant equal access to all political parties and presidential candidates”.

It urged the media to play the role of mediators between the electorate and political parties by policing and guiding the language of discussants, callers and those who send text messages.

It urged the IEA and other civil society organisations to lobby for provision to be made in the 2008 Supplementary Budget, if one was envisaged, for the funding of political parties for the 2008 elections as a short-term measure while advocacy for the passage of the draft Public Funding of Political Parties' Bill continued as a medium-term objective.

The communiqué also entreated the government to observe the convention that had developed in the Fourth Republic under which it allocated vehicles to political parties participating in the elections through the EC immediately after filing of nominations.

“Both the government and Ghana's development partners are also called upon to provide support for polling agents of all political parties and candidates,” it said.

It called on the IEA and other civil society organisations (CSOs) to establish a Centre for Monitoring Election Violence that would document all reported incidents of inter- and intra-party violence and in a proactive manner, alert the affected political parties and the relevant security agencies to those incidents.

It urged the leadership of CSOs including the media to speak out against the canker of political, religious, cultural and social intolerance, ethnic animosity, partisan fanatism, fundamentalism and tendencies that created alienation, powerlessness, marginalisation and factionalism.

It said the NCCE, the IEA and other civil society organisations would organise special separate engagement sessions with the National House of Chiefs and the Association of Private Broadcasters, in particular, managers of local language FM stations, to make them appreciate their roles in ensuring peaceful and violence-free elections.

The communiqué called for adequate resourcing of the NCCE to enable it to intensify civic education on tolerance and peace before, during and after the elections and suggested that the NCCE could collaborate with the IEA to implement its programmes related to elections and be proactive in sourcing funds from other bodies apart from the state in order to make itself more relevant to the current dispensation.