President John Agyekum Kufuor in a group photograph with International Republican Institute (IRI) and National Democratic Institute (NDI) delegation
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has cautioned the Electoral Commission (EC) to be transparent and accountable in order for Ghana to have peaceful general elections on December 7.
The EC, under Charlotte Osei, is seen by many political pundits as having assumed a posture of arrogance to the displeasure of well-meaning Ghanaians, as this year’s elections reach home stretch.
“The referee must be seen to be transparent and accountable. We talk of transparency and accountability and these are the cornerstones of our national constitution and the EC should not be exempted from these provisions,” he told a delegation from the reputable National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), both based in the United States.
The delegation, led by Johnnie Carson, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, who is currently a Senior Advisor at Albright Stonebridge Group and the United States Institute of Peace, had paid a courtesy call on the former president to solicit his views on the processes leading to the crucial elections.
The team is expected to conduct a pre-election assessment and specifically look at the environment on the ground prior to the general elections.
In the process, the team will meet the political parties, senior and former political leaders, constituent groups, NGOs and others who are concerned about the democratic process.
President Kufuor said, “The whole idea is that the EC must be independent alright, but it should also know that it is accountable to the people. It is not an independent institution unto itself. It is accountable to the people generally.”
Afari-Gyan’s Influence
The meeting became interesting when the delegation’s leader, in outlining Ghana’s democratic credentials, remarked that immediate past EC boss, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, played a significant role in ensuring that Ghana continued to remain peaceful and stable.
Mr. Kufuor then countered, “I acknowledge that the same EC under Afari-Gyan brought me and my party to power, but we all have our ups and downs. Today you are a fair referee, tomorrow for whatever reasons you may not prove to be that fair. As we respect Afari-Gyan for his track record, we should also admit that the situation we find ourselves now is more reflective of how he left the scene.”
Mr Kufuor even cited a situation in which he said a few months to the 2012 elections, the EC was busily creating new constituencies at a time when the commission had closed the voters’ register and rebuffed those not in favour of the creation.
“At the bottom of the exercise, we should acknowledge the relevance of history. We talked of Dr. Afari-Gyan going off and a new EC chairperson being appointed. I don’t think it is as straight as that. You remember what transpired in the 2012 general elections. We saw the palpable tension around the country. At that time it was Afari-Gyan!”
New EC Boss
He continued, “The new chairperson of the commission wasn’t at all involved in 2012 and you remember the Supreme Court case that followed after the elections.”
He said the opposition tested the legitimacy and fairness of the 2012 results in court and although the leader disagreed with the court, he accepted the verdict for peace to prevail.
“There is an adage that ‘once bitten twice shy’. We are coming into another election and naturally some serious stakeholders think that there should be true transparency, fairness and the justice of the election.
“Today party A got it and how it got it might be in question so party B coming into the contest again wants to ensure that truly the EC, not so much the Chairperson, would be a fair arbiter so that in the end the loser would accept the verdict and the winner would also have the magnanimity for the other side.”
According to former President Kufuor, “It is the evolution of the system and 2012 proved to be such an exceptional election that people fear generally that if some of the things that happened are repeated in 2016, we would not know the outcome and we don’t want to be surprised at all.
“Our wish across the board is that we should go through this election peacefully so that at the end there must be a winner and we continue to remain as one nation,” he articulated, adding, “But the tension that we sense, I believe, is tension that has been generated just to keep on reminding stakeholders, more so the referee (EC) that the institution has responsibility to the country and I am sure it wouldn’t go down in history as the body whose supervision of election caused Ghana.”
Accountability
“If the executive, legislature, judiciary and all other institutional bodies are expected to be accountable, transparent, then the EC should not be different from these organs of state,” Mr Kufuor said, adding, “All the programmes and the management of the elections should be such as to convince us that the commission is living up to its responsibilities. The average Ghanaian essentially is worried.”
Vigilante Groups
The ex-president also touched on concerns raised by the delegation that there appeared to be the emergence of party militias or vigilante groups in the country; but he said he trusted the security agencies to handle the situation.
“Wherever there is power you see people trying to show muscle but I have a feeling that the security agencies would do their work impartially. If they do their work impartially and the EC also plays its role in fairness and in neutrality, those sprouting vigilantes would not amount to anything.”
The delegation leader said, “There are new circumstances that prevail today which will raise the level of tensions, create more opportunity for post and perhaps pre-election conflict. We are here to get an assessment of what the challenges are for holding a successful election like you have done so well in the past, and what has made the situation potentially more volatile than before.”
By William Yaw Owusu