Vote-Rigging Is The Problem, Not Election Petition

As long as we have intellectuals amidst us who find it either too inexpedient or threatening to face the truth and factual reality of Fourth Republican Ghanaian political culture, we are doomed to a state of moral and cognitive stasis for the foreseeable future.

I am here, of course, referring to Dr. Kwesi Jonah, the Legon political scientist who recently appears to have carved a quite remarkable avocation out of blaming the proverbial victim for the massive fraud that was the Afari-Gyan-conducted Election 2012 (See "Election Petition Threatens Stability - Kwesi Jonah" Ghana News Agency/Ghanaweb.com 5/24/13).

At a roundtable discussion sponsored by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Dr. Jonah was reported to have pointedly observed that "the outcome of the petition hearing has the potential[ity] of threatening national peace and cohesion, overstretching the security system, the creation of constitutional paralysis, and the paralysis of the central and local government machinery."

In the recent past, the Legon political science lecturer has gratuitously chided boycotting New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentarians for doing a disservice to their constituents and the nation, at large, because these MPs had decided to privilege high-minded democratic principles over the knavish condonation of electoral corruption and nullification.

The fact of the matter is that what is at stake is not the decision by the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party to petition the Supreme Court of Ghana for electoral redress, but the conditions that made it possible and virtually acceptable, at least on the part of their partisans and sympathizers, for Messrs. Afari-Gyan and Mahama to collusively rig Election 2012 in favor of the latter.

And while we are still on the latter score, let me take this prime opportunity to remind Dr. Jonah that it was the flat, rude and adamant refusal of the Nkrumah-leaning Dr. Afari-Gyan to promptly review the results of Election 2012, at the express request of Nana Akufo-Addo, that precipitated the present crisis situation.

And so, yes, one resoundingly and unreservedly agrees with Dr. Jonah that the entire architectural design of the way in which elections are done, or held, in this country ought to be thoroughly revamped. And this, of course, implies the immediate removal of the Electoral Commissioner and most of the key operatives of the Electoral Commission (EC), if confidence in the EC among the ranks of the Ghanaian electorate is to be restored in the offing.

I must also poignantly observe that during my half-century existence as a Ghanaian citizen, both at home and abroad, and with the apocalyptic emergence of Chairman Jerry John Rawlings and his AFRC, PNDC and now, NDC, Ghana has not even half-experienced the sort of "national cohesion, peace, unity, stability and reconciliation" that Dr. Jonah wants to force upon us. At best what has prevailed over the last three decades can be called an "uneasy truce."

It is the inevitable wearing out of the foregoing dicy political climate which the Legon political scientist appears to be having such an extremely difficult time in fully appreciating. Ultimately, the only saving grace left to Ghanaians presently is the existence of a legal and judicial system that is no respecter of political partisanship. And as to whether the Atuguba Court is capable of living up to the standard of expectation, both morally and politically, is what all patriotic Ghanaians ought to be worried about.

As for victory celebrations, there is absolutely nothing than can obviate them in a constitutionally democratic culture, the likelihood of offending group and individual sensitivities notwithstanding.

*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]