Will the NPP lawsuit transform our electoral system?

It is the beginning of a new year. You know it is going to be a great year when we are starting off with what some have labeled the most important political lawsuit in Ghana since independence. Let’s call it the gargantuan lawsuit if unprecedented does not fit. No matter what we call it, I have been more preoccupied with the potential impact the petition will have on our electoral system than about who will win or lose the case.

My goal is to convey why I think every well meaning Ghanaian, irrespective of party affiliation, should take a step back and think of the potential impact this case can have on our electoral system and our democracy.

On December 28th 2012, the National Patriotic Party (NPP) flag bearer, Nana Akuffo-Addo and two others filed a petition at the Registry of the Supreme Court of Ghana challenging the validity of the results of the presidential election as declared by the Electoral Commission (EC) chairman on December 9th, 2012. The outcome of the election is being challenged because the NPP claims the election was rigged in favor of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) led by President John Mahama.

As expected, supporters of the NPP are eager to see the case move forward. They actually maintain the hope that Nana Akuffo-Addo will win this case, and perhaps be crowned the victor. Not surprisingly, the NDC supporters think otherwise. They feel the lawsuit is a waste of time. The election is over and we should just move on. They feel Nana Akuffo-Addo is just whipping up his base with false allegations of electoral fraud.

To underscore the importance of the potential impact this case can have on our democracy, imagine what Ghana will look like as a one party state. Do we really want an authoritarian one party state like Mobutu’s erstwhile Congo or an Obiang Equatorial Guinea? If we do not want to become victims of an authoritarian one party state, then we must do whatever is necessary in our democracy to prevent that. As citizens we have an obligation to ensure that the process for choosing and replacing our political leaders and government representatives is through free and fair elections.

A broken electoral system is the beginning of the continuous election of one party. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is a case in point.

Let’s face it: Every democracy is as strong as three (3) key elements: 1. The strength of the party (or parties) in opposition. 2. The strength and independence of institutions. 3. The strength of the media and it’s interaction with an engaged citizenry.

In several democratically mature countries, the most important of these elements is the media. The media is powerful and strong because the citizens can afford to stay engaged. The media houses are significantly wealthy and can very rarely be corrupted. They can expose the government and politicians in cases of corruption, abuse of power or failure to perform the duties for which they were elected. The citizens consider it their civic duty to participate in their democracy by staying informed and taking action by organizing several groups of similar interests to exert political pressure.

The branches of government and ancillary institutions are also very strong and independent. For instance the US Supreme Court could have easily struck down Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act commonly called Obamacare, making it difficult for Obama to successfully run for a second term. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in the US, which compiles and announces the monthly unemployment rate, is considered independent and not influenced by the government. The publishing of the monthly unemployment rate, can directly affect the outcome of an election. In fact, the final unemployment figures reported before the recent U.S. elections were quite low, leading some in conservative circles to conclude that they had been doctored to favor President Obama. Of course, these allegations were unfounded and not entertained by the labor department.

This is not the case in most developing democracies. Some in the media have been corrupted and the institutions have been weakened through bribery and lack of adequate oversight and accountability. Sadly, the majority of the population lack adequate education and do not have the capacity and motivation to stand up for their rights. The only element left to check corruption, the abuse of power and the failure to perform duties by politicians and the government is the opposition.

It wasn’t necessarily the media who brought pressure on the NDC government for paying all those judgment debts. It was the opposition. The whole thing was started by Kennedy Agyapong of the NPP. Most of the rallies to create the awareness of corruption on the wrongful judgment debt payments were organized by the opposition.

The NPP in opposition also agitated for changes in our electoral system, which culminated in the introduction of transparent ballot boxes and the biometric voting system. Through the work of the opposition and its oversight, the government is forced to perform its duties. Recently the opposition took the government to task, pushing for improvements in the organization of the Nation Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and the Single Spine Salary Structure just to name a few.

In a democracy the people reserve the authority through their sacred ballot to determine who will represent the government at the national and parliamentary levels. The government is left with the option of executing its duties appropriately or be voted out of office. The fear of being voted out of office due to lack of performance, serves as a motivator for the incumbent to do what is right by the people.

If the incumbent is able to corrupt the electoral system and therefore become immune to being voted out, they can stay in power indefinitely and the democracy transitions into a one party state. This is exactly what Kwame Nkrumah cunningly accomplished after independence and consequently ended up in his overthrow through a coup d’état. In 1964, he proposed a constitutional amendment which would make the CPP the only legal party and crowned himself president for life of both nation and party. The amendment passed with 99.91 percent of the vote, an implausibly high total that led observers to condemn the vote as "obviously rigged”.

Ghana must avoid going down this path again. This is why the lawsuit to challenge the results of the just ended 2012 elections should be of paramount interest to every well meaning Ghanaian. The lawsuit presents a unique opportunity to expose the flaws within our electoral system.

The debate within the public domain, so far as this lawsuit is concerned, is whether NPP has the evidence to support their allegations of electoral fraud in the court of law. Though that debate is not the subject of this article, some of the flaws within the electoral system have been outlined by observers as follows:

1. The network service provided by STL to the Electoral Commission (EC) for faxing the results from the various constituencies is an open and shared network with minimal security features. This means transmitted data can be intercepted and manipulated. 2. It’s hard to believe but the collation of the results at the constituency level was done by manual addition. 3. In spite of the rule that all parties must agree to counted number of votes recorded on blue/pink/read sheets, some polling stations accepted results without the consent of all parties. 4. No verification, no vote was not followed. 5. The polling register was given out at the last minute so it couldn’t be vetted by all parties before voting. But why should it be the responsibility of the political parties to vet the register anyway? In the US, for instance, do the Republicans or Democrats have to go through the polling register before they vote?

In a mature democracy, a thorough review of the performance by the institution of the electoral commission itself, would have listed these flaws as issues to be fixed before the next election. Additionally, the media through the engagement of the people would have exerted pressure on the electoral commission to fix these issues before the next election.

Instead of having a strong and fair electoral commission necessary for the advancement of our democracy, we have a weakened and impatient EC chairman whose only answer to the opposition when asked to exercise patience to resolve alleged inconsistencies in electoral results was, “Go to court.”. We are fortunate as a nation that the opposition did not take the laws into their own hands as happened in Kenya, but decided to follow due process and file a petition.

As good and engaged citizens, we should follow this case carefully to determine whether the judicial institutions, and the supreme court in particular is free, fair, and truly independent. As well meaning citizens, we should define fairness by the merits of the case, evidence provided and judgment meted. But most importantly, we must seek reforms in our electoral system.

To add insult to injury, the chairman of EC said it is the responsibility of the political parties to ensure that the elections are free and fair. This responsibility will come at a huge cost; consider the following scenario:

1. Having agents to vet the polling register before voting. (About 275 times 4 equal to 3300 agents) 2. Having multiple agents at each polling station on election day (About 26002 times 3 equal to 78006 agents at the minimum) 3. Having a collation center in 275 constituencies (275 times 3. That is 825 agents) 4. Having an IT infrastructure to collate the votes in real time so you could challenge results. (That is about 40 employees) 5. Having lawyers standing by to file cases immediately.

When all these expense items are compiled, and the operational costs are calculated, a political party will have to seek additional funds to set up a monitoring department almost as large as the electoral commission itself. This cost will be too much for a challenger to bear and will therefore give the incumbent an undue advantage in any election. If we allow this to happen, political campaigns will become so expensive that the opposition cannot raise the funds, the incumbent cannot be voted out of office and we will possibly descend into the abyss of a one party state.

We must not allow this to happen. We must leverage this lawsuit as a catalyst to transform our flawed electoral system. This lawsuit should be viewed as a national issue and not an issue for the opposition alone. It happens to be NPP in this case but the same scenario if left unchecked could leave another party with the same fate.

Since the opposition has become our last hope for checking and holding the incumbent government accountable, this lawsuit must assume a critical national stature. It is our best hope of having a meaningful national debate about the flaws within our electoral system. Our civic engagement is necessary to ensure that the right thing is done.

Will the NPP lawsuit bring any changes to our electoral system and therefore improve our democracy?

It’s all a matter of perspective. If we keep an open mind, stay engaged with the media and maintain pressure for change, the flaws in the electoral system will be debated in court and fixed by the EC. But if we keep a narrow view and leave this as an NPP issue, we will miss the opportunity to address the issues plaguing our broken electoral system.

And when we are left with a broken electoral system, NPP will obviously be alienated this time round. However, next time it will not just be NPP who is locked out. It will be many of the honest individuals who refuse to use or succumb to corruption to win elections. The honest leaders we so much crave will be alienated. We will only be left with the corrupt ones who will only lead us down the path of Mobutu’s Congo.

Let’s stay engaged. Push for implementation of reforms to our electoral system and improve our democracy. God bless Ghana.

Copyright Kwabena Agyeman Nyanteh