There is a hue and cry around the country, as many Ghanaians struggle in their attempt to get registered to be able to exercise their franchise come the general elections in December this year. Many reasons account for the present state of anxiety and confusion that have characterized the exercise so far. Amongst the reasons are: the late start of the exercise; inadequate publicity about how the 2,500 workstations available (?) are going to operate at the 5,000 centres opened within the 11-day period of the exercise to cater for voters, who are eventually going to be spread across over 21,000 polling centres across the country; as well as our statistical challenges as a nation, which was exposed through the projections of the Electoral Commission about the turn-out being torn asunder by the third day of the exercise.
The result of this was that as the days wore on, rather than decreasing, the lengths of the queues increased by the day, particularly at registration centres within the urban centres of the country. The consequences were inevitable - shortage of registration materials at some centres, thereby reducing further the already limited time for the exercise, and increased anxiety.
Also, the potential crises characterizing the exercise had become obvious by the third day of the exercise, when some youth started to sleep over at registration centers in order to assure themselves of comfortable positions in the queues for getting registered the following day!
But even if all these struggling men and women get registered within the period of this limited exercise, that does not in anyway guarantee the end of their frustrations in their bid to exercise their civic responsibility of electing their leaders.
Those who would be lucky and patient enough to complete the exercise would have the other trouble of trying to locate the polling centres where they would be assigned, after the EC had completed this exercise and compiled the Register. It is my suggestion that before and during the exhibition of the Register, the complete list of the newly-registered be displayed serially at the centres where their data was captured, specifying which polling centres they had been assigned to.
This is necessary to minimize the situation where people wander through whole electoral areas, trying to locate their names in Registers. Additionally, officers of the EC ought to be stationed at these registration centres to direct electorates to the polling centres where they are assigned. Considering our poor address system, these Officers of the EC must also know the specific locations of all polling centres, so that they do not send people wandering about as happens in the past.
It is also around times like what we are experiencing now that the exercise of leadership becomes necessary. It was therefore heart-warming that even as some District and Municipal chief executives are coming under accusations of interfering in the registration exercise, the Mayor of Accra, Mr. Stanley Adjiri Blankson, after appraising the situation in his area of jurisdiction, toured registration centres and supplied them with security personnel! It is my hope and expectation that district, municipal and metropolitan chief executives not only see themselves as bosses but as people with responsibility to their people and live up to those responsibilities at all times. Even though when the peace in one area of the country is disturbed, the whole country suffers, it also gives indications as to the level of competence or incompetence of the local leadership.
The re-opening of the register started 12 weeks behind schedule, since the EC had originally scheduled to commence the exercise on May 8, 2008. The reason given by the EC for extending the date was that logistics (cameras and films) that they required were out of production. What Ghanaians have not been told, however, is why the EC had to wait till this election year to start procuring these key logistics for the exercise.
It is clear that already, we are in borrowed time. What I believe is important now therefore is for a consensus on the way forward, with constant engagement between the EC on one hand, and political parties, government, and civil society organizations on the other, to engender better insight into the programme and together help surmount any potential challenges along the way.
In that way also, all key stakeholders will feel ownership of the rest of the process and therefore reduce the blame game, which inflames passions and find expression in violence. We still can get back on track and make the December 7 elections one of the most incident-free elections!
J. Ato Kobbie
j.atokobbie@yahoo.com
0243139680
