This is complete rabble-rousing!

 
The presidential candidates of the various political parties who have been cleared to contest in tomorrow's election recently assembled in Accra to sign a peace pact.

The idea by proponents of the peace accord was to ensure peace before, during and after the elections.

Considering what is happening in other African countries, where elections become battle fields, The Chronicle sees as laudable the idea to commit the flagbearers of the contesting parties to sign the peace pact.

Our concern though, is the frequency for the signing of these peace pacts. The 2012 maiden edition was held in Kumasi in the presence of Otumfuo Osei Tutu Ababio, the Asantehene.

The big question is how long should we keep on signing peace pacts?

Since 1992, when the country ushered in the Fourth Republic, almost all the successive presidents of the United States of America, starting from Bill Clinton have visited Ghana because of our flourishing democracy, which has become the envy of our peers.

Indeed, except for some recorded pockets of violence, all elections conducted under the 4th Republican Constitution have been relatively peaceful.

It is based on these past records that The Chronicle finds it rather unfortunate, the continuous signing of these peace pacts as if this nation does not know what peace is.

The most ironic and disturbing aspect of it all is that, some of the international observers invited to witness these peace signing ceremonies are from war-torn countries.

If these so called international observers know how to maintain peace, how then did their countries go to war? Is this not a shame that we have visited upon ourselves?

Since bad news sells, the foreign media are always interested in terrible news from Africa. The Chronicle does not begrudge them because it is part and parcel of journalism.

However, as a nation, we must prevent this bad press by doing the right things. The moment we invite our flagbearers to sign a peace pact, we are telling the world that the election would turn into violence and this would compel the foreign media to focus their attention on Ghana.

As we noted earlier, we are not against signing of the peace accord per se, but what we are against is its frequency, as if we are learning nothing from our democratic dispensation.

The 1992 Constitution has relevant provisions that deal with anyone that tries to take the law into his or her own hands.

Unless we are trying to tell the world that the flagbearers are not aware of these sanctioning provisions in the constitution, then there is no need to keep on signing the peace accord.

After practicing democracy over the past 24 years, we have come of age and should, therefore, stop sending wrong signals to the outside world that our democracy has weak foundation.

What promoters of these peace accords should do is to keep an eagle eye on our electoral process and ensure that every vote is counted when the polls come to an end. We must stop this rabble-rousing attitude because it is tarnishing our image.