Law cannot control society if it does not satisfy fundamental social needs for both stability and change (Roscoe Pound, former Dean of Harvard School of Law).
This is exactly what the Supreme Court of Ghana has done over the past few days. Some including myself believe that last Tuesday’s ruling was like treating the Electoral Commission (EC) with kids’ gloves, but under the circumstances and evidence before the Court, it could not have done otherwise. The chair of the EC is quoted to have said that using other identifications for registration for the purposes of elections would amount to creating an elitist register. This is a subtle admission that majority of Ghanaians in 2012 used the NHIA cards to register. But is the issue about elitism, plebeian, or constitutionalism? I will come to that later.
Until last Tuesday’s judgement by the Supreme Court, this nation was sitting on tenterhooks even before the elections began. This is not to say that a possible threat to our national security has been completely wiped off. The conduct of the EC and how the elections are organized between now and the declaration of the final results will determine how Ghanaians take the results. We are not out of the woods yet, in my opinion, and I am not a doomsayer. All over the world where democratic systems of governance prevail, the body which organizes the elections becomes more important to the public than the contesting political parties.
A body like the EC is given all the constitutional protection to be independent in order that it will be an impartial referee in the organization of any form of public elections in this country. Boateng (1996) states that ‘in modern democratic processes of government where the people’s will is the dominant political factor, elections occupy a position of special importance because they are primarily through them that, that will is able to achieve its most potent expression’. The political parties are contestants struggling to catch the eyes of the voters for their mandates to govern. The body which has the legal mandate to organize the elections is ‘expected to be impartial, effective and transparently non-partisan and independent in the conduct of the elections and in the declaration of the results’.
Since 2012, Ghana’s Electoral Commission cannot be said to have been impartial, effective, and transparently non-partisan and independent in the conduct of the elections and in the declaration of the results. The Election Petition at the Supreme Court in 2013 pointed out so clear that the EC did everything in collaboration with the ruling government then, to subvert the will of the majority of the people of this country. The violations of the EC’s own rules and regulations by its own officers, the number of registered voters on the electoral roll whose identity and location could not be identified as well as three times the number of the election results sheet, popularly called the Pink Sheets, printed by the EC, and the process of transmission of results via a body contracted by the EC without the knowledge of the stakeholders, gave ample indication of the stealing of the elections aforethought.
The arrogant and disrespectful posture of the EC in the 2012 elections and the aggravation of those postures by the EC under Mrs. Charlotte Osei so far, gives ample testimony to the preparation of the EC to travel on the path of the Afari Gyan led EC. Ever since Mrs. Osei took charge of the electoral body, her attitude and mannerism have given her everything but her ability to be impartial in the coming elections. Her attitudes are akin to someone who was coached to travel a particular line, and in spite of the realities, the challenges and opportunities available to her, it is a matter of ‘master say’.
The Supreme Court of this country which has the mandate to uphold the primary law of the land, that is the 1992 Constitution, told the world that an identification tool, the NHIA which was used to register Ghanaians for the 2012 elections was unconstitutional and therefore should not have been used.  The Court went on to say that at the time those tools were used, there was a law which permitted the holders of that tool to use them for the purpose of registering. In simple primary English language that can be understood by the weakest JHS student in my deprived village, the EC refused to understand the instructions of the Supreme Court. Perhaps they thought that they could ignore orders and instructions the same way government officials ignore the orders, instructions and directives of the President.
This arrogance of the EC to change what is constitutionally wrong in our national discourse, saw more than two years of wasted time to do what is right. This is the result of a prejudiced mind whose thoughts are aimed at achieving a particular goal, damn the consequences. Left with about five months to hold crucial general elections in this country, so many processes that lead to the elections are still hanging in the air. The law which is supposed to bring the elections day forward is still in the process, which am told is long.
Now the EC is compelled to delete a certain number of names from the register and allow same to re-register before the election day. By the last Supreme Court judgement, this order overrides any activity the EC is embarking on, in relation to the register. How many weeks the EC can use to meet the new order, then embark upon its own voter register exhibition and compile a reasonably credible voters’ register and distribute same to all the political parties for the elections is a matter worth taking note of. What amount of time will be available to the EC to engage in public education before the elections?
The EC should not think that it can organize itself in a haphazard manner towards the elections and succeed in whipping all of us to line up to vote in an election which is poorly organized with the sole aim of getting a particular political party to win power. In all the intransigence of the EC, the active players in the seasonal Peace Industry are quiet; the industry operators only see individual voices which are morally repugnant towards individuals as the only threat to our national security and stability. The biggest threat to the peace and stability of this nation is the elections before us.
The African continent has a lot of history in elections generated conflicts which led to civil strife and their consequent social, economic and cultural disintegration. Ghana has so far managed to hold itself very well no matter the flaws, genuinely or deliberately orchestrated by the EC, to move on. How long will Ghanaians tolerate such blatant display of impartiality as being exhibited by the EC this time and retain the nation whole? This fallacy that God loves us so much that he will not allow what has happened in other countries to happen to us must be thrown into the dustbin.
God did not hate the Liberians, nor the Sierra Leoneans. Indeed God loved the Ivorians the more, yet when the people could no longer hold on to the foolishness of their leaders, they rose up and drove them away with loss of lives though, and in all the instances, those in power lost. No amount of security will make bad leaders secured if the anger of the people gets to its boiling point.
NHIA CLOSES DOWN
Visit any of the District offices of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) throughout the country, and you will see that the offices are opened, the staff are there, but they do not register new clients neither do they re-register those whose cards have expired. Reason? They don’t have money to operate. Meanwhile they have been told to tell the public that they have challenges with their equipment, the machines. How can the machines of the scheme break down at the same time nationwide? Mahama does not care because they don’t need the NHIA cards for this year’s elections. A nation being governed by lies, that is how low we have come.
Daavi, please give me three tots.