Austin Gamey
The issue of a credible electoral system using the latest technology is non-negotiable. We, therefore, find it preposterous a suggestion or even an invitation to the Electoral Commission (EC) to avail itself for an arbitration process by a company of arbiters.
The independence of the EC should not be watered down through so-called arbitration manoeuvres being championed by long-hidden hands with political objectives.
More interesting is the fact that the arbiters claim to be rendering a corporate social responsibility to the country. Ghana does not need this corporate social responsibility gesture because it is tendentious and, therefore, not inuring to the interest of the growth of democracy. Providing furniture to schools without them would be better than a so-called arbitration corporate social responsibility gesture in a non-existent impasse.
The simulation of an impasse over the compilation of a new voters’ register is part of the agenda of the NDC members, who have never liked innovations in the management of elections in this country.
There is no tension in the country. What is prevailing today is an opposition party sulking because the EC is unfolding a new elections management system, a departure from the status quo. As the party is bleating, it tries to simulate tension which does not exist at all. So what arbitration is being pushed onto the public space?
Some observers reading between the lines think the so-called arbitration is an NDC agenda which after exhausting everything in its arsenal of mischievous tricks is turning to this option. The threats of taking over the streets of Accra, Armageddon, occupying EC and the final one their flag bearer’s prediction of fire and brimstone have all not changed the resolve of the commission to do its work.
Arbitration too won’t work because it was not tried when Charlotte was in charge and the independence of the commission in doubt.
The EC does not need the approval of political clubs, some of them unqualified to be called political parties, to do what it deems as inuring to free and fair polls in the country.
A decade shy of two years in today’s IT-driven world is such a long time that using an already flawed voters’ register for a 2020 election is not only hypocritical but also would smack of incompetence of the EC to continue to use for polls in this country.
Governments are birthed through free and fair polls something which can only be achieved when a truly independent elections management body exists.
Arbitration in matters of the replacement of a bloated voters’ register and foreign management of the critical aspect of the election management system which the EC is working upon is tantamount to interfering with the constitution-endowed independence of the commission. To the proposers of the arbitration gesture, Ghana says, “No! Thank you.”