With the exception of past military interventions in the governance of this country, no other institution of the state has subjected Ghanaians to so much stress and tension than the Electoral Commission (EC) in its preparation, conduct of elections and declaration of the results. During the era of Dr Afari Gyan he arrogated to himself a mandatory three days to declare election results (not by any established law) and no matter other grave observations brought to his notice, he arrogantly ignored with his usual remarks – “go to Court”. His intransigence finally landed him at the Supreme Court during the 2012 election dispute and there his arrogant ego suffered such a devastating blow that he wished he had avoided the court.
The Supreme Court trial totally wiped out the credibility of the EC and the Voter Register (VR) was bastardised compelling the Supreme Court to recommend its validation. The new Commissioner on assumption of office assured all Ghanaians that she would restore the image of the Commission but before she could settle down many demands were made on her by concerned Ghanaians to replace the Register to restore some credibility in the Commission. Unfortunately, she started “playing musical chairs’’ with decisions regarding major issues on the Register and constantly became evasive with her responses. It therefore came as no surprise when the contentious issue of the NHIS Card used by some Ghanaians to register as voters and one of the major causes of the bloated Register was challenged by Mr. Abu Ramadan and Mr. Evans Nimako at the Supreme Court.
The Court without mincing words directed the deletion of names from the Voters’Register of all who registered with NHIS Cards and those who qualified were to be offered the opportunity to re-register with other approved documents. Once again the Commissioner sought to toy with the Court’s decision compelling the plaintiffs to seek the interpretation of the Courts’ Orders and the outcome was more than anticipated and embarrassing for the EC. The EC has been ordered to submit “before the Court in six days, in writing the whole list of persons who the Commission admitted before the Court that they had used NHIS to register as per their registration forms which are in the exclusive custody of the EC’’ and was emphatic that the orders be carried out on or before 29th June, 2016. From my intelligence sources, the EC has no list and it lied to the Supreme Court and therefore we are waiting anxiously to see the document it will produce before the Court. The Court’s orders and other implications could have been avoided if the Commissioner had listened to sound reasoning from other Ghanaians instead of relying on the NDC and the Government.
The Voter Register (VR) is a document compiled by the EC which contains names of Ghanaians (and other details) who have reached eighteen years and above and of sound mind to exercise the right to vote in the national, constituency or district level elections as enshrined in Article 42 of Ghana’s Constitution. To ensure peaceful elections in the selection of a Government, a credible VR must be maintained and this responsibility has been entrusted to the EC as per Article 43. A credible VR must be devoid of names of the dead, ghosts, foreigners and Ghanaians under the age of eighteen years and no Ghanaian is to be registered more than once.
The credibility of the VR is so important that anyone who underestimates its importance toys with the security of the state since some major upheavals that have taken place in other countries have come about as a result of election disputes arising out of disputed Registers. The VR per se cannot win an election and yet without a credible register no elections can be conducted and accepted as fair. The VR cannot win an election simply because if the register contains for example fifteen million registered voters and ten million out of the fifteen cast their votes on election’s day, the winner will be declared based on the ten million who voted. So why all the fuss about the register whether bloated or not? The reason is that when a VR is not credible, it is either bloated as a result of “ghost” names or contains names of unqualified Ghanaians and foreigners. A non-credible VR creates room for malpractices and give ample opportunities for unscrupulous people to manipulate the results of the poll for undeserved candidates.
How do we then ensure the credibility of the VR? The answers are many but the following will suffice. Firstly, the commitment of the commission to maintain its neutrality and independence, secondly, daily registration of Ghanaians on attainment of eighteen years of age , thirdly, regular removal of names of the dead and fourthly, the removal of the names of foreigners.
If the Commission is committed to maintaining its neutrality, it will ensure the retention of a credible VR. The equation of ranks of the senior members of the Commission to the status of Justices of the Judiciary is to encourage the Commissioners to take bold and independent decisions without fear of favour. The “Chairman of the EC shall have the same terms and conditions of service as a Justice of the Court of Appeal (Article 44 (2)) whilst the Deputies shall have the same terms and conditions of service as are applicable to a Justice of the High Court (Article 44 (3))’’. These privileges are conferred upon them to ensure that officials display the same high level of integrity in their various duties as demanded of the Justices but unfortunately the officials of the EC have failed woefully. Their performance and the current verdict of the Supreme Court are a betrayal of the trust reposed in the EC since their inefficiencies are too many to count.
The limited registration of voters is a waste of everybody’s time, financial resources and had deprived many Ghanaians of the opportunity of exercising their right to vote during Constituency by-elections and District elections. Ghanaians attain the age of eighteen years on daily basis and to wait to register them before general elections is madness when offices of the Commission are located in every district. In developed countries, citizens are registered on daily basis and the primitive practice by EC cannot earn any praise from Ghanaians-Tofiakwa!
We are told that the VR contains the names of about 600,000 registered voters who are dead. This sounds incredible because on whose instructions are the EC waiting for to expunge the names? Ghanaians die every day and before they are buried, burial certificates are issued from the Births and Deaths Registry offices located in every district. With some administrative arrangements, the VR can be updated weekly, monthly or quarterly as the Commission may so desire. To compile 600,000 names and wait for a special day to expunge them is plain incompetence.
The removal of foreigners from the VR is another interesting issue. In many countries, regulations are made so tight that foreigners can hardly register but in Ghana our actions and inactions encourage it, organise it and physically ensure that foreigners register to vote as witnessed in the last limited registration exercise. It is an indictment on the performance of the EC. The work of the Commission involves human beings and results can only be achieved if consensus is reached among stakeholders in finding solutions to the many problems that confront the EC. Without human touch all efforts will come to nothing.
When elections are rigged or manipulated for a particular candidate, the country is denied the choice of a deserving leader and the country and its people suffer. Similarly, when the VR contains the names of other nationals, the credibility of the elections is undermined and the winner so declared would have come through the back door. If anyone enters your house “through the back door” that person is a thief and if that person happens to be a leader of a country he/she will surely plunder the resources of the nation as Ghanaians have experienced.
The seven months schooling at the Supreme Court trial exposed many electoral malpractices but the sad thing about them is that they cannot be executed successfully by any political party without the mysterious hands of the EC officials. A credible VR will not leave much room for manipulations and this has been the root cause of the tussle between NPP, some concerned citizens and the EC to ensure that what happened during the 2012 elections is not repeated in 2016.
The Supreme Court has decided to take the bull by the horns to prevent the EC from plunging the country into chaos and many Ghanaians are waiting for the final decision to put to rest this episode of a Voter Register. . “The world suffers a lot not because of the VIOLENCE of bad people but because of the SILENCE of good people” (Napoleon).
By Brig-Gen J. Odei