Criticisms levelled at EC sometimes fair – Anyenini

The criticisms the Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana has suffered from the Ghanaian public is sometimes fair, Sampson Lardy Anyenini, a legal practitioner, has said.

He made this comment in reaction to concerns by the Chair of the EC, Charlotte Osei, that the electoral body had been unfairly criticised by the media in Ghana.

On Thursday July 14, Mrs Osei said: “There has been no publication in the media seriously examining the more than 20 reforms which the Electoral Commission is implementing in this year’s election cycle and their consequences on the elections. We have not seen a single report on how the results can actually be compromised or manipulated from an operational perspective, which will now require that the media will call on the EC to resolve those operational gaps that they have identified.”

She added: “…Yet every day, we are inundated with spurious reports in the media of how the EC and the chair of the EC as a person are rigging the election, and these comments are reported with extreme speed and glee and it’s just amazing to us.”

But reacting to these comments in an interview with Emefa Apawu, host of Class 91.3 FM’s news analysis programme 505 the same day the EC Chair criticised the media, Mr Anyenini, who is also host of Multi TV’s Newsfile programme, said: “The emphasis is not the media, [because] the media provides the conveyer belt of the criticisms that the EC has suffered.”

He explained: “Civil society, the politicians themselves have led these criticisms that have been levelled at the EC, not exactly the media. What I will say though is that there have been times when I have felt disappointed at the role of the media in ensuring that what is dealt with is factual and that the comments that some of the politicians and even the civil society make targeted at the EC are matters that we (media) had verified ourselves so that we can put a counter.

“… We have to note one thing and the EC ought to pay attention to that. What are the major issues that have driven criticisms at the EC? What have been the EC’s own attitudes or response to the issues that have brought about the criticisms that it has suffered for which it is now looking at the media as the ones that have been largely responsible?

“When the matters of the EC not dealing with the populace, not dealing with the citizens that it is supposed to supervise elections over, the need for an elections calendar, it took quite a while for that to be brought forward. The election calendar as we know, of course not by the EC’s own doing entirely, is not being followed to the letter.

“The issue of matters that had been taken to court, for example by the 6th of May when the judgement was given in the Abu Ramadan case, if the EC had not taken a position that has been thrown away by the Supreme Court recently, the EC would have done the steps or done the things it ought to have done then. So, sometimes, it is fair to say that a fair amount of the criticisms that the EC has received has been fair.”