Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso
Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso has taken exception to former President John Mahama’s incessant attacks on the Electoral Commission (EC), describing it as campaign propaganda rhetoric and said “it should not be taken seriously.”
That notwithstanding, the academic who is a Dean at the Ghana Armed Forces Command & Staff College (GAFCSC) said attacking institutions of state as the former president has done does not help the growth of democracy and should be avoided.
“Let our utterances cue in for the consolidation of democracy. Let us not denigrate institutions of state such as the EC,” he told a cross-section of the media in his office yesterday in Accra.
He said Ghana’s democracy, as it is elsewhere, is about getting one more person and so the former president in his bid to gain this made the inappropriate remark.
“What if the former president wins the December elections which the EC he denigrates manages?” he asked rhetorically.
He said, “The EC as a human institution is bound to suffer hitches here and there but to come out and attack it the way the former president has done is not acceptable.”
The hitches which the EC encountered during the registration process were technical, something which is common to all other institutions in the management of their assignments, he added.
“I am against the logic of the former president which suggests that because there were hitches during the registration exercise therefore the elections would not be properly conducted. It is the logic of the former president that I am against,” he said.
Dr. Antwi-Danso called on stakeholders to follow the constitutional order to resolve issues and avoid attacks on state institutions such as the EC.
“Those whose actions remove the trust people have in the EC are by their action courting instability in the country,” the academic said.
“Let us take on state institutions only when they veer off their constitutional mandate,” he said as he warned against ridiculing constitutionally established bodies such as the EC.
Ghana, he said, has reached a stage where “we should consolidate our democracy”, adding that “I would only attack the unconstitutional act of an institution not the person heading it.”
By A.R. Gomda