Welcome To The Heartbeat Of Ghana's Democracy, Electoral Commissioner

Safe Democracy Ghana congratulates you on your ascension to the post of Commissioner, Electoral Commission of Ghana and we expect that you live up to expectation that what men can do, women can do and do it better.

Appointing you to replace the outgoing commissioner Dr Gyan became an issue to the extent that the Supreme Court of the land was brought in the show. It therefore indicates the complex and showman traits some political figures would want you to jingle out as a commissioner.

Safe Democracy Ghana though knows by virtue of the constitutional provisions and the Act that established the Electoral Commission of Ghana; your hands are tied about you without any leeway to maneuver except when recruiting officials and representatives that shall man your districts and regional offices of the electoral commission. Your commission cannot do the recruitment alone without the express consultation of the civil service commission. We pray the civil service commission shall help you employ service personnel dedicated to loving democratic rule for the people of Ghana.

To facilitate your work without hindrance to manipulation of service personnel from the civil service directorate, you must seek to decentralize the services you render and make culpable and punishable service personnel who violate the laid down rules of officiating electoral procedures in Ghana.

The harrowing problems with the electoral commission of Ghana is very much ado about nothing as the electoral laws of the country cannot be redesigned by the Electoral Commission to produce perfect, qualified tension free and satisfying results to assuage the quest of the masses. You cannot undo it without the Parliament of Ghana coming to fore to amend the intricate constitutional provision that continues to encumber serious electoral punishment on the people of Ghana in the name of exercising their franchise.

Old and opaque electoral system was designed by the framers of the constitution and it basically refutes the concept of majoritarian rule in government per the rule established by Article 50.1 of the 1992 constitution.

“Subject to the provision of this Constitution, where at the close of nominations and on the day before a public election -

a) two or more candidates have been nominated, the candidate, the election shall be held and the candidate who receives the largest number of votes shall be declared elected.”

Where three candidates from different political parties should be vying for a seat in parliament and the candidates A, B and C received 40, 35 and 25 per cent valid votes cast respectively, the candidate with the 40% simple majority wins the election but she/he does not represent the majority which defies democratic principles of majoritarian rule. It also disqualifies proportional representation on different shades of opinion in law making and in government as is directed under Article 103. 5 of the constitution 1992.

In the above given scenario, the majority 60% of the populations are not represented and that is truism. The systematic occurrence of the simple majority winning candidate to represent cohorts of the population who did not endorsed her/him is surely recipe for chaos. It breeds continues cynicism in our political expedition.

Article 63.3 also defies developed democratic principles of electing a head of state, a nation’s chief executive officer or the President of a Nation like Ghana.

The Article reads “A person shall not be elected as president unless at the presidential election the number of votes cast in his favor is more than fifty per cent of total number of valid votes cast at the election”

This method is incongruous to democratic principles and Safe Democracy Ghana baffles why the framers of the constitution nor the constituent assembly failed to adopt our cultural system of making kings in Ghana as a rule into making a President of Ghana if they so wish for “A President At All Cost” and grant him/her the medals contained in Article 57.1 as the Head of State, Head of Government and the Commander in Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces.

(1) There shall be a President of the Republic of Ghana who shall be the Head of State and Head of Government and Commander-in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ghana.

(2) The President shall take precedence over all other persons in Ghana; and in descending order, the Vice-President, the Speaker of Parliament and the Chief Justice, shall take precedence over all other persons in Ghana.

It is virtually undesirable to adulate in one person the above attributes of place of honor and place of profit. It is also insulting to the cognitive intellect of the Ghanaian that his culture and tradition is given up at the expense of democratic modularization which is inconsistent with the culture and tradition of the people of Ghana.

The chieftaincy institution is alive and kicking and the regional representatives that sum the national house of chiefs deserved to be ceremonial heads of state. Place of Honor granted.

The Place of Profit sought shall be the governments who cropped up to shape the political will of the people, to persuade people to invest in various directions and take taxes to safeguard the interest of the people of Ghana that they also can benefit.

To put all these together and endow it on a candidate to be sponsored by groups of people with different agenda in the name of political party sponsorship is to divert and dissuade public trust by wrong hands. Giving the head of government power to control the army is very much fallible without a countervailing authority to check on its activities.

In developed democracies, be it parliamentary or executive system of government, never have they ever adopted 50 +1 % winning in the election of a President or a Prime Minister on the basis of popular vote let alone talk of hopping greenish democratic Ghana. Ghana is commanded to make all its adult suffrage a kingmaker whilst our custom and tradition abhors that, whilst the United States of American rejects that and the United Kingdom and Germany do not practice that and Japan, Malaysia and India detest that. Probably the Parliament of Ghana under Article 289 should wake up to the call and re-sit for constitutional amendment to reject what is dividing us as a people.

The people of Ghana have been deceived if the framers and the constituent assembly admit to the assertions that they have carved for the people of Ghana a hybrid constitution made up of United Kingdom and the United States of America system of government because the basis of the formation of a government is the electoral platform and in no way do our Ghana’s electoral system resembles that of either the United States or the United Kingdom.

The Voting Age Population of the United States of America is 235. 480 M (two hundred thirty five million two hundred forty eight thousand. The adult suffrages directly elect 538 electors to elect the President of United States of America. To become the President of all powerful United States of America, a candidate requires only two hundred and seventy Electoral College vote to become the President of the United States of America. The Americans since the inception of their constitution have committed Kingmakers to elect the President like we do here in our kingdoms.

In the United Kingdom, the electorates under adult suffrage elect Members of the House of Commons. Political parties normally prepare a safe seat for their leader on which he/she gets elected into the House of Commons. After general election, the party with majority members in the House constitutes the Government of the United Kingdom and the leader of the said political party emerges the Prime Minister, the Chief Executive Officer and leader of Government Businesses. This is also an indication that, the Chief Executive Officer of United Kingdom is not directly elected.

The French rejected chieftaincy institution and in its place this is what they do. The adult suffrage elects the President who then appoints the Chief Executive Officer from the Primary Chamber Parliament. The Prime Minister constitutes the government. The Political Party of the Prime Minister could be different from the President’s political party if the Prime Minister’s party is the majority in the lower Parliament.

In almost all the western democracies, they INDIRECTLY elect head of government. What stops mother Ghana from emulating same is what baffles Safe Democracy Ghana?

Wisdom from Traditional Ghanaian setup.

With multi ethnic society we are blessed with as a nation, all the custom and tradition of the people of Ghana ensemble oppose Article 63.3 of the constitution and rather endorses INDIRECT system of electing our traditional authorities and the fiduciaries of the land that makes Ghana. It further portrays the views that, the framers of our constitution erred and erred very serious in the making of government for the people of Ghana under strict definition of the word “constitution”.

The other serious neglect of our independence was the breaking off a countervailing power to arrest, shape and cool effects of the hasty, proscriptive and unwise laws the government shall desire to do. This has been our woes as a nation which in subsequent communication with you, we shall seek your influence to help make a second chamber parliament feasible in our ways towards successful democratic thrives.

The people of Ghana would have no problem if the presidential electoral system or the method into electing the head of government of Ghana assumed in the previous

Constitutions of 1957, 1960 and 1969 constitution were adopted. It would be gregarious and fundamentally fantastic to make a government without having to promise electorates what one does not possess.

Now that politicians are wailing in shame that politics in Ghana is monetized, then we should be aware of sponsors of political parties and what they shall bring to our homeland Ghana.

Munir Saani

Executive Secretary

Safe Democracy Ghana.