Make Ghanaian electoral institutions work as those in US – Mahama to govt

Former President John Mahama has asked authorities in Ghana to ensure that institutions like the Electoral Commission and the Judiciary are able to work without fear or favour just as what pertains in the United States of America (USA).

Mr Mahama noted that during the just-ended elections in the US, despite calls by the sitting president to the electoral institutions to halt vote counting, they were able to ignore him and worked as they should.

Ghanaian institutions must be able to work the same way, he told TV3’s Komla Kluste in an interview on Sunday, November 8 regarding the results of the US polls.

“It is admirable when institutions work in a country. Despite the fact that the elections was not going the way of the president and he was calling for a halt in the vote counting, the institutions just kept on working the way they should,” he observed. “That is the kind of operability and strengthening of the institutions we seek in Ghana. That institutions are able to work without political influence. I wonder what would have happened if the same thing was happening in Ghana.

“But we will see how things go, we all need to work so that our institutions like the Electoral Commission, the judiciary and the institutions that anchor our democracy are strengthened so that it doesn’t matter which government is in place, they offer the right services.”

He further said, “I don’t want to ascribe anything to it but it looks like anytime power has shifted in the US it has shifted also in Ghana. There is a certain certainty in this world that every four years there is a US election in November and ours in December.

“I don’t want to speculate but the significance of the choice of a woman as the Vice president, Americans are going to have the first female vice president

“We are hoping for the same in Ghana, we have a very capable woman as my running mate.”

He added: “We should take a lesson from what has happened in the US. When you have a leader who becomes divisive, there are a lot of doubts about his personal interest and family interest, he abandons his allies and just pursue a unilateral policy, a time will come when the people will get fed up and will rise against you. So I guess that Trump’s one-term in office has many lessons for us here in Ghana too.”