EC POSITION ON DISTRICT PARTY OFFICES IS A WAR ON FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION - Dr. Nii Amu Darko

After misinforming Ghanaians that there is a constitutional provision stipulating 7th December as the election date for Ghana, the agency charged with organizing free and fair elections in Ghana has gone pseudo-constitutional again. Read the story below.

‘’The Electoral Commission (EC) is considering barring political parties without offices across the country from participation in the 2016 general elections.

The Constitution stipulates that all political parties must have at least offices in two-thirds in all 216 districts in the country.

The EC is set to embark on a nationwide inspection of offices of political parties and establish whether they meet that constitutional requirement.

Information available to Joy News suggests the EC will use the outcome to determine qualification of parties to contest in the 2016 election.’’

The EC is wrong with this directive. I am not sure why all of a sudden it issued this fatwa, but coming just after my 2 articles on the performance of the EC Boss in parliament, it smacks of what I call ‘’adolescent immaturity’’. The timing shows this is a reflex reaction.

I will discuss this under 3 headings:
1. Constitutional/legislative
2. Common sense
3. Morality
Constitutional/legislative
Freedom of association (FoA) is guaranteed under our constitution. Every law must aim at encouraging its realization. Formation of political parties is an extension of this right. Any law which discourages freedom of association is unconstitutional. That directive of the EC will frustrate FoA.

We cannot trust the EC’s understanding of the constitution, can we? What is the constitutional or legislative position regarding registration of political parties?

THE FIVE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOURTH ACT OF THE PARLIAMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GGHANA ENTITLED THE POLITICAL PARTIES ACT, 2000

AN ACT to revise the statute on political parties to bring the provisions in conformity with the Constitution and to provide for related matters. DATE OF ASSENT: 23rd February, 2000

Conditions for registration
9. The commission shall not register a political party under this Act unless

a. the internal organization of the party conforms to democratic principles and its actions and purposes are not contrary to or inconsistent with the Constitution;

b. the party has on its national executive committee one member from each region;

c. the party has branches in all the regions and is, in addition ORGANIZED in not less than two-thirds of the districts in each region;

d. there is in each district at least one founding member of the party who is ordinarily resident in the district or is a registered voter in the district;

There is NO MENTION of the word OFFICE in the Act. So where did the EC get the word from? I guess from the same place it got the 7th December provision. Are we really safe?

Common sense
Assuming the word OFFICE is in the Act. Does the Act define an OFFICE? What is an office? This takes me back to 1983 when we started Economics. Our teacher asked for the definition of ‘’Market’’. One of my mates got up and pointed to the Dodowa market and wondered why the question at all.

The teacher replied, a market need not be a physical place but any arrangement that brings buyers and sellers into contact. 32years after, an EC led by a lawyer is defining an office as a physical place. Common sense should tell anyone that an office need not be a physical place. My office is in my bag.

The EC presented a budget of Ghc 1.2b to parliament which was cut by a 3rd. Common sense will dictate that under such circumstances, the EC would stick to its core mandate – to conduct free and fair elections starting with a credible voters’ register and not how many chairs a party has in a district.

How does this ill-advised exercise improve the freeness and fairness of the elections? Does the EC know why it was appointed at all? Does the EC understand the constitution and related Acts of Parliament which it is supposed to be operating with?

This is very worrying but not surprising. The whole system is rotten. The Minority Leader who is supposed to hold the government and its appointees accountable has jumped to support the illegal and totally unnecessary fatwa of the EC.

Where was the Minority leader when the EC Boss misinformed Parliament about a non-existent provision stipulating election date and presented an over-inflated budget to Parliament? The smaller parties also do not see the fraud. The collective ‘’brain’’ of the political establishment is in hibernation.

Morality
We know that the Political Parties does not talk about offices, but let’s assume it does and further agree that it improves the freeness and fairness of the elections. I am saying the State does not fund political parties so it has no moral right to make such demands on any party.

You do not have any moral right to demand the exams results of a person whose fees you did not pay, do you?

In Australia, political parties are partly funded by the State, so the State has the moral right to demand how the tax payers’ money is used. EC role is to ensure the practice of democratic principles within political parties and not how may tables and flower vases the parties own in a district.

Parties present their vision to the electorate who decide. The EC’s job is to ensure that the outcome of the election reflects the Will of the people. The infrastructure that parties use to communicate with the electorate is not part of the EC’s job.

This fatwa is thoroughly thoughtless. It has all the marks of an agency completely out of its depth. The EC is panicky that a yet to be registered party is bringing light to a stuporous political environment, so its invoking the spirit of Herod to kill the infant party before it hits the road. The EC lies bad.

Dr. Nii Amu Darko, Leader African Reform Movement

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