Ghana elections evolve and improve election after election – John Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama has stated that the activities by Ghana’s Electoral Commission after every election helps improve on elections in the country.

The former president was addressing a delegation from the Democratic Republic of Congo who paid a courtesy call on him in their quest to learn from Ghana’s electoral process and how DR Congo can ensure a peaceful environment before, during and after its elections.

Mr Mahama who shared ideas with the team said, “every election is better than the previous one” because Ghana’s Electoral Commission undertake a post-mortem of every election to correct what went wrong and prevent it from happening again in subsequent ones.

Recounting on how far Ghana has come in terms of multi-party democracy and elections, the former President said: “In 1992 we started with metal ballot boxes, today we are using translucent ballot boxes”.

He added that votes were transferred to a collation centre before counting is done but now “as soon we vote at the pollen station, counting is done in presence of everybody and that everybody is there with mobile phones to transmit the results immediately”.

In discussing the activities of various institutions and systems peaceful electoral process Mr Mahama said the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) has been very helpful in Ghana’s electoral process.

He explained that IPAC as an advisory committee to the Electoral Commission involves members from all political parties which creates consensus among the political stakeholders at every step the EC takes.

“I think that that is one of the instruments that has ensured that we have that degree of faith and trust that our electoral commission is getting the job done well” he stressed.

Ex-President Mahama said one good thing the religious bodies together with the National peace council and the traditional leaders do is that all political parties are called at a conference to sign a peace declaration which commits the political parties to peaceful elections.

He further advised the EC of DR Congo to ensure that the election process is transparent, free and fair in order to avoid any electoral dispute.

The delegation was made up of Moslem and Christian leaders of DR Congo, as well as the Electoral Commissioner Nangaa Yobeluo Corneille.