Rejected Ballots: A Stain On Ghana’s Democracy

Introduction

I believe such a formal closing of the New Year School is necessary insofar as a there was a formal opening event.

Outreach

In attempting to monitor media coverage of the current New Year school, I realized how little known the significance of this School has been to the younger generation of Ghanaians. And this is in spite of the wide publicity given to the New Year School every year. My own participation in the School goes as far back as the late eighties, and later in 1991, on the eve of Ghana’s transition to Constitutional rule, when I gave a talk on the media and multi party democracy. But that year, I also chaired a very stimulating panel on constitutional governance with speakers like P. A. V. Ansah, and one chubby, articulate young man, who had been an incurable crusader against dictatorship, and was still active in the struggle for constitutional democracy in Ghana. He was later to be a presidential candidate. He is Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo, whom I was meeting for the first time. Indeed, the New Year School, over the years, has had a knack for attracting eminent, and sometimes controversial personalities on the national scene.

Since the early nineties then, I have been moving in and out of the New Year School in various capacities.

Yet in spite of the strides the New Year School has made in the past 60 years, two radio commentators doing a media review program a few days ago, openly expressed ignorance about the significance of the School, and what it was all about. It is indeed very tempting to be dismissive of the comments of these two radio journalists. Yet it goes to demonstrate the insurmountable task involved in seeking to bridge the gap between the University of Ghana and the public.

This is particularly ironic since part of the remit of the Institute of Adult Education, since its founding in 1948, is Outreach to the public. But the relative public ignorance about the New Year School is also because the normal proceedings and communiqués issued at the end of each School every year, possibly end up as a mere academic exercise, to be found in files and on bookshelves.

It is to this end that I challenge the Organizers to find creative outlets of publicizing outcomes of the School beyond media dissemination. How does the School reach the ears of policy makers; how do we publish and disseminate proceedings and communiqués? How do we reach the ears of secondary and tertiary institutions, whose students may be interested in the rich variety of opinion expressed at New Year Schools? How can the students preparing for exams in Government and Social Studies benefit from your rich ideas? These are challenges that I throw to the New Year School as you wind up.

New Year and Political Climate

Now, after a weeklong stay at the University of Ghana, I believe you all must be itching to link up with the wider community in savoring and even celebrating Ghana’s democratic achievements this past week, which are currently being drummed all over the world. I say this because, the entire 2008 New Year school, has been held under a national climate of suspense and anxiety, even to a certain extent, fear of mayhem and infernal fire. You conducted the New Year School under unusual circumstances: where participants must have been torn between participating in seminars here, and following the outcome of presidential elections in Tain.

Indeed the very first day of the New Year School, 2nd January, was also the day decisive late elections were being held in Tain, one part of the Bono Ahafo region. Similarly, yesterday’s sessions here coincided with two important events, the formal opening of the fifth session of parliament under the 4th Republic, and the presidential swearing-in ceremony, which I believe completed the cycle of events associated with the politics of Ghana’s transition.

The timing of these very significant events, may have made it impossible for the New year School, to subject relevant aspects of our democracy to scrutiny; but I believe planners of the Easter School for this year will highlight these for discussion.

Even so, I am glad that aspects of our recent political experience had been anticipated, and came up for discussion in the past one week, that you have been deliberating on the theme ‘Lifelong Learning and Accelerated National Development.’ Significantly most of the sub themes you discussed are of crucial relevance to the current political climate. These include the theme of Political Education and Democratic Governance, Peace Education etc.

For me one of the greatest lessons from the elections, has been the number of eligible Ghanaians, who were present in Ghana and voted, but must have been disenfranchised, as if they never existed as voters.

Political Education

I refer to the issue of rejected ballots. This topic falls squarely within the domain of democracy and public education, and signals a failure in the work of the National Commission of Civic Education, and the Electoral Commission. The staggering number of spoilt ballots was an embarrassment to our democracy. It reflects short-sightedness in our planning, and a lack of sensitivity to the crucial significance of illiteracy in the electoral process: the need to fine tune voting practices to reduce the incidence of disenfranchisement. It is also a mark of the failure of planners to be sensitive to history.

For the facts about rejected ballots were available to learn from. What lessons did we learn from history? Let me give you a gist of this.

The pattern of rejected ballots since the return to constitutional rule in 1992 has been remarkable. In 1992 out of a total vote of four million one hundred and twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and seventy-six (4,127,876) ballots cast in the presidential elections, one hundred and forty-nine thousand eight hundred and thirteen (149,813) votes representing 3.6% were rejected. That huge percentage was simply because the time interval between 1992 and the previous national election in 1979 was 13 years. The percentage of rejected ballots dropped four years later. In 1996 out of seven million two hundred and fifty-six thousand eight hundred and eighty-two (7, 256, 882) votes cast, eleven thousand one hundred and eight (11,108) were rejected representing 0.15%. That low number was simply because we must have done our homework after 1992. In the year 2000, out of six million six hundred and twenty thousand two hundred and thirty-two (6,620,232) votes cast, one hundred and nineteen thousand three hundred and sixty-two (119,362) were rejected, representing 1.8%. We inched up but did not reach the 1992 record high.

In 2004, we forgot our lessons again! Out of the total of eight million eight hundred and thirteen thousand, nine hundred and eight (8,813,908) votes cast, one hundred and eighty-eight thousand one hundred and twenty-three (188,123) votes were rejected, representing 2.1% of votes cast. Was that a consolidation of our democracy?

In 2008, about 2.5% of ballots cast were rejected in the first round--- the second highest in our recent history! Is that a consolidation of our democracy, as the world has been touting since December? Do we indeed deserve the lavish accolades the world has showered on us?

The lessons here are simply that no lessons have been learnt by our planners.

ILLITERACY

Coming to the staggering figures once again, the disaggregation of the data from region to region, gives a strong clue that illiteracy, or probably inadequate education about how to vote was a major factor.

In other words, the higher the illiteracy rate, the greater the percentage of rejected ballots. In 2004, rejected ballots in the Greater Accra region were 1.2%; 1.4% for Ashanti region; 1.7% for Volta region, 2.0% for Eastern region, 2.2% for Brong Ahafo region, 2.3% for the central region; Western region got 2.8%, Upper East had 3.7%, Northern region had 3.9%, and Upper West region had 5.6% of ballots rejected.

In 1992 Central region recorded 4.7% of rejected ballots (as against 2.3% in 2004); Upper East had 6.5% (against 3.7% in 2004), Northern region had 6.7% (as against 3.9% in 2004), and Upper west region which had as much as 8.3% in 1992 got 5.6% ballots rejected in 2004.

Incidentally the last three regions with the highest rates of rejected ballots: Upper East, Northern and Upper West also have the highest illiteracy rates in the country. According to the 2000 census figures, Northern region has an illiteracy rate of 76.2%, Upper East has 76.5%, and Upper West has 73.5% illiteracy rate. Indeed of all regions, Greater Accra which often has the lowest percentage of rejected ballots, also has the lowest illiteracy rate of 18.4%. Western region has 41.8%, Central has 42.9%, and Brong Ahafo has 48.5% .

There is thus a clear correlation between illiteracy and the incidence of rejected ballots. From the immediately preceding analysis, it is clear that we are unwittingly disenfranchising several thousands of eligible voters and possibly communities by neglecting crucial factors that promote stakeholder participation in governance.

Verily verily then, if our planners had done their home work, the district called Tain, would probably have had no business deciding who won the Presidential elections. The EC had no business spending millions of dollars on a second round. The second round (or even the third) vote, was simply unnecessary, probably a classic case of causing financial loss. The winner was determined in the first round, but the entire country had been blindfolded and fooled!

A few questions of course arise; whose idea was the new, strange voting procedure? A voting procedure that has an in-built capacity to disenfranchise! What was wrong with the old? Did EC do a pilot with the new? Was it tried in the hinterland? What was the outcome? Was the public adequately warned ahead of the new strange procedure? I rest my case.

Attendance

Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, let me now turn my attention to logistical matters about this School. I would like to express my pleasure, on the other hand, that in spite of the overarching national event, the attendance at this New Year School, even though not as high as previous years, has not been utterly disappointing.

I am told that, this year we missed at the School here, the participation of a very big constituency, the District Assemblies, who may all have been busy either dancing the kangaroo or twirling their fingers. It is, however, notable that one District Assembly – the Ga West Municipal Assembly sponsored 20 participants. May I take this opportunity to commend the Ga West Municipal Assembly, but also express thanks to the Ghana National Association of Teachers and the Trades Union Congress who have continued to keep faith with the School. It is also gratifying to observe an increasing number of Senior High Schools who are sponsoring their staff to participate in the School. This is not to forget participation by the Civil Servant Association and Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government.

My biggest applause is, however, reserved for the 18 or so individuals who sponsored themselves to the School, showing how relevant the New Year School has been as a learning platform.

I wish also to recognize the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB) and the Pension Reform Implementation Commission for sponsoring aspects of this Year’s School. One would indeed expect more sponsorship from the corporate world in future.

It is my expectation that the theme of life long learning and accelerated development which has engaged your attention in the past week, has been thoroughly examined, and that lessons learned will adequately enlighten your day to day lives, and educational endeavors.

Innovations

Let me finally express my delight in seeing a remarkable innovation in this New Year School: namely the health screening exercise. This is indeed an innovation the University of Ghana itself has introduced in the past three years, compelling all staff to subject themselves to annual health screening. I hope that this is not going to be a one-off event, but will be a permanent feature in future Schools. One other innovation which I would invite your planners to add in future, is doing keep fit in the mornings, during the New year School. This University has one of the best landscapes for morning and evening walks, and it is a delight seeing the Legon Health Club of senior members, old and young, taking advantage of our unique landscape and doing keep fit exercises every Saturday morning.

Conclusion

May I take this opportunity on behalf of the University administration to thank all participants for their presence here in the past week. It has indeed been a pleasure having you here, when you could probably have been party agents and electoral officers.

I wish you all a happy New Year and a safe return to your respective destinations.

May I now formally declare the 60th Annual New Year School closed.

Thank you.