I agree with Kwesi Pratt’s position that President Mills should not be seen as taking an individual stand which pitches him as supporting one side of the Ivorian conflict against the other because of the dire consequences such a stance may have for the many Ghanaians living in that country.
I however totally disagree with his position on the Ivorian conflict to the extent that he believes the country was not conducive for free and fair elections because of the presence of rebel forces in the North. Kwesi Pratt is currently one of the senior journalists I have the greatest respect for in Ghana. In the years 1999/2000, I could sacrifice myself for Kweku Bako. I did not miss news file those days because of what I saw as his “objective” criticisms of the then NDC government. I however lost some of my reverence for him when the NPP came to power and I came to see that his criticism of the then NDC government was borne more out of personal beef against Rawlings and the NDC than out of a principled stand for what is good for the people. Just as any human institution, the Kufuor government, in spite of the wonderful work it did, made some mistakes, but Kweku Bako was the most vociferous defender of some of those mistakes. The electorates listened to him but reserved their right to pass judgement in December 2008, and so they did.
When did Kwesi Pratt realise that Ivory Coast was not ready for peaceful elections? How can any objective person fail to realise that Gbagbo manipulated the electoral arrangements and timetable to suit himself? Is Kwesi Pratt saying elections were only rigged in the North but never in the Gbagbo loyalist areas? Was Gbagbo himself not a beneficiary of the verdict of the same international community when Robert Guei wanted to steal the elections ten years ago?
We should be talking about standards here. If the majority of the stakeholders in the election agree that the polls were generally acceptable, what is Kwesi Pratt trying to say? Did Akuffo Addo not cry foul in 2008 but went ahead to accept the election results declared by the electoral commission in the interest of mother Ghana? We do not build democracy and other institutional virtues on the pillars of perfection, but we rather work towards perfection from imperfect beginnings.
Gbagbo must go!!! That is the rule of the game.
Mathias
