The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana last Tuesday (May 7, 2024) commenced one of its routine, constitutional duties of registering persons who have turned 18 years since the EC’s last voter registration.
It is reassuring to note that venues for this registration exercise are not limited to the 268 District offices of the Commission, but also extend to some 700 difficult or not easy to reach locations. Not unexpectedly a few hitches occurred on the first day in terms of digital network system breakdowns and even delayed start of the registration exercise. Being a human system, not every aspect of the exercise happened, as planned or expected, and the EC deserves our understanding. We however appeal to the EC to make sure that these hitches or technical challenges are adequately and promptly addressed when they occur. We do not want to have a repeat of same during the December 7 General Elections.
We wish to commend the EC and the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), which have cooperated so far for the registration to take off. The Catholic Standard further calls on the EC and especially political parties to ensure that only people who are newly eligible to register do so. The addition of extra registration locations and the provision of standby generators notwithstanding in the likely event of power failure, the EC should not hesitate to extend the set duration for the registration exercise in the light of the current challenges associated with it.
We urge IPAC to audit the voters’ register at the end of the registration exercise. The register has to be very credible for us to have credible and peaceful elections.
It is regrettable that at the beginning of such a crucial exercise as voter registration, the EC should find itself embroiled in allegations of 2020 procurement breaches regarding the purchase of election-related equipment, missing or stolen biometric devices and the disposal of certain sensitive EC equipment.
For the sake of transparency, accountability and good corporate governance, we urge the EC not to downplay such and any forthcoming allegation, given its crucial role in our democracy and especially being the sole umpire in every and the December 2024 Parliamentary and Presidential elections. We recall a year ago in our editorial of March 19, 2023: “For the sake of its reputation as a truly credible Commission and to discard any appearance of a compromise, biased election referee, we recommend to the Electoral Commission that its image matters most and it should be jealously protected at all costs, at all times.”
This Paper suggests a bipartisan Parliamentary Committee to look quickly into these and other EC-related matters, if only to put to rest the veracity or otherwise of these allegations. Practices that do not favour accountability are injurious to democracy. Again, in any keen election, such as the forthcoming, dovish intention can easily melt into hawkish action. Thus, the electorate deserves to know the truth in all these matters. And Parliament has a greater role to play with respect to the Electorate growing in mutual understanding of the EC.
The words of a Buddhist Nun, Pema Chodron are instructive: “The world is always displaying itself, always waving and winking, but we are so self-involved that we miss it.” To wit, we often miss the greater sensitivity to the ordinary details of our responsibilities, to such an extent that when we are out of office or power, we look back with the foolishness of regret for having shirked our responsibilities or for having been compromised due to selfishness or partisanship.
The Political Parties, Civil Societies and the general public have given very clear indication of their special interests in the forthcoming Parliamentary and Presidential elections. The political stakes cannot be any higher. And so, let the EC be guided in the saying that the more a choice costs, the more its worth. Thus, the EC should be wary of unreasonable intransigence.
We sow the seeds of our future- joy or sadness- by the way we open or close our minds to present-day realities.
