Ghana's Democracy is Shaky - D.I warns

The Danquah Institute has cautioned Ghanaians to have interest in any measure geared towards securing the integrity of its ballots as well as the security of the people. The admonition was made at a press conference at the Ghana International Press Centre addressed by the institute’s executive director, Gabby Asare otchere Darko on its impending national conference on the viability of electronic voting in Ghana in February, 2010.

On a day marking exactly one year after the 2008 elections, Mr. Otchere Darko said Ghana’s evolutions through the journey of democracy in its fourth republic has witnessed very significant changes in the form of transparent ballot boxes in 1996 and photo identity cards that replaced the obnoxious finger print id’s for the 2000 elections. We are right to feel proud of this achievement and the rest of the world is right to pay tribute to it. The world does recognise that the importance of our successful multi-party democracy reaches far beyond the 23 million people within our borders. It has profound significance for other African nations whose nascent democracies might yet falter and fall. Here, we have succeeded in holding five consecutive elections in the Fourth Republic and we have succeeded in changing the reigns of power from one political party to another twice now.

“But looking back to December 7, 2008, if we would be sincere with ourselves, it’s pretty obvious the time has come for us to raise the bar another notch higher. Elections are not supposed to be times of fear, inflamed passions, intimidation and panic. It’s a simple event that passes without much ado in the advanced countries and we can do same. We have no reason to sit back and watch if we feel the current system is not secured enough or can be bettered”, said the executive director.

“An election poll process that does not take into consideration how ballots enter into the ballot box certainly falls short of what is required for a credible poll. Does it mean that we should condone violence, intimidation and stuffing of ballot boxes as part of our elections and is it just ok since the ballots are already in the boxes? Should we just overlook the important incidence of spoilt ballots when the amount of votes that separated the winner from the looser is a pale 2.5% of the amount of votes declared as spoilt ballots by the electoral commission? Should it be accepted as regular or a norm that some portions of the country are described as no go areas for opposing parties?” the executive director asked.

The 2008 elections was conducted after very heated campaigns by the two leading parties; NPP and NDC, under a much tensed atmosphere, had people glued to their radio sets by fear, graphic images of people wielding machetes, cudgels were shown on TV with some radio stations charging the supporters of a political party to come out in mass to defend their sovereignty at the perils of their lives, as well as playing militant reggae music urging supporters to ‘chase those crazy bald heads out of town.’

It will be an indictment on us all if we cocoon ourselves in some corner pretending all is well with our electoral system. We cannot so soon have forgotten about the numerous calls made for electoral reforms including possible change of date for conducting the elections, transition bill in the immediate periods after the elections.

An insecure and unreliable electoral register and process is a sure recipe for violence and threat to our fledgling multi party democratic journey.