Our country will be a great place to be if our laws are applied when they have to. Unfortunately there have been instances when offenders are neither questioned nor prosecuted.
When word reached Ghanaians that five disqualified independent candidates suffered their fate because they presented fictitious documents to the Electoral Commission (EC), many were surprised that some persons could decide on such a dishonest path.
Equally surprising was when nothing was heard about the possibility of an action taken against them.
It was relieving therefore when a couple of days ago the Director General of the Criminal Investigations Department, (CID) COP Isaac Ken Yeboah, acknowledged receipt of a complaint about the alleged inappropriate conduct of the disqualified persons.
For us it is a clear case of alleged Electoral Law breach which must be investigated by law enforcement and when appropriate, prosecutions effected.
We have witnessed instances of persons seeking to run for the highest office of the land who do not meet the requirements set out. Such persons nonetheless go ahead and present themselves under circumstances which do not measure up to the basic integrity standards.
Those who present fictitious documents to the EC to stand as presidential candidates have failed the basic integrity test besides breaching the Electoral Laws of the land.
It is for good reason that minimum requirements exist for those seeking to run for the presidential or even the parliamentary contests.
It would appear that the last voters’ registration exercise which the opposition NDC opposed to the hilt exposed the myriad fault lines in the manner the compilation of the voters’ roll was undertaken in previous times. It is this that we have lived with over the past many elections until the decision to alter the status quo.
It is unsurprising that the outcomes of polls in the past are marred with questions of integrity of the process.
It stands to reason therefore that when it is glaring that infringers of the electoral law can be identified, no time should be wasted in probing their alleged illegal roles.
Our ability to deal with such infringements will send clear messages that we as a nation would not brook breaches of our electoral laws.
Elections being the midwives of democracy, they must be managed with the utmost quality and latched to the total respect and adherence to the existing Electoral Laws.
Democracies have been threatened when the electorates become suspicious about the non-abidance with the Electoral Laws at the different strata of the process.
We commend the EC Chairperson for the unusual initiative of reporting the disqualified persons to the police for the necessary action.
The 30,000 persons who have also been disqualified from voting in the December 7 process should have also been dealt with in like manner, but for the huge number involved.
Be it as it may, it is our stance that breaches of the Electoral Laws should not be treated lightly because of the national security implications they can engender.