John Mahama
Denigrating an institution of state such as the Electoral Commission (EC) is a means of triggering instability in the country.
Of late such denigrations have been couched in outright threats by the former President against the EC.
Those who cherish democracy, especially its progress here in Ghana, have cause to take issues with the tangent the former President has decided to tread upon.
In a reaction to the recent attack on the integrity of the EC by the former President, the renowned academic, Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso, although said it was mere campaign propaganda intended, as he put it, to garner the one more vote to win the polls, we think it goes beyond that.
In fact Dr. Antwi-Danso himself said that such rhetoric as they were directed at the EC were courting instability. We could not agree more anyway.
While the former President should not be taken serious on one breath, on another as the academic said, given the possibility of such remarks creating avoidable instability, the need for all peace-loving Ghanaians to descend upon him should not be overlooked.
The reaction of the academic on this score is a welcome development because it provides the bastion against a tendentious political agenda to rob the election management body the deference it needs to deliver on its mandate. Â Our democratic journey as Dr. Antwi-Danso observed needed consolidation and not destruction.
Such consolidation would elude us as a nation when irresponsible rhetoric in the name of free comments by especially political leaders were allowed to gain unwelcome foothold.
The constitution as our magna carta defines in unambiguous language how its infringement should be dealt with. This way the smoothness of governance and for that matter democracy is sufficiently ensured.
Unfortunately the tendency to attack personalities who only head constitutionally established institutions has become rife in our body-politic by persons who should know better about the importance of adhering to best practices in their conduct and public place utterances.
Why has the former President after giving a thumbs-up for the EC after the voter registration exercise now turned around to wage a war of attrition as it were against it especially its chairperson?
What has changed since then? Perhaps there is something which has dawned upon the former President and now informing his new attitude towards the EC which is beyond our ken.
Inasmuch as the EC Chairperson has not infringed upon the constitution as it relates to the management of elections in the country disparaging remarks as it is ongoing from the former President demand condemnation.