Ghana's 2008 Election was flawed -DI

The Executive Director of the Danquah Institute has said that the 2008 general elections of Ghana had so many flaws and that he fears the country is not showing any serious interest in putting measures in place to avoid that in 2012.

“Even though every vote was seemingly counted not every vote counted in the final analysis. And, if every vote counts then not every vote was properly counted in 2008. Both parties must be blamed but what are we doing now to cut out that cancer of electoral malpractices from our system for the future? We musty wake up now, start thinking and working on it,” he urged all stakeholders.

Addressing the Africa Media & Democracy Conference with an audience of international journalists, academics and NGOs, Mr Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko referred to US President Barrack Obama’s landmark visit to Ghana in July 2009 to “”lift up successful models,” but warned that despite Ghana’s glowing reputation, “Ghana’s democracy shares more with its neighbours than many would like to admit. Not many of you may know but we got so close to a civil war.”

He said, “Ghana’s 2008 presidential election held the potential to deliver violence instead of peace, anarchy instead of order, regression instead of progression. A military takeover could not even have been ruled out, a point people privy to national security intelligence reports would find difficult to challenge. But, what lessons have we learnt from it as we look ahead to 2012?”

Mr Otchere-Darko called for greater vigilance and positive pressure to ensure that the Electoral Commission receives the necessary funding to undertake necessary reforms, such as a cleaner and credible voter register based on biometric data.

“But, the signs are not good. The way Government has been slow in funding the much-delayed District Assembly elections does not augur well for the critical processes to 2012.”

Speaking on the theme: ‘Informing Responsibly – How the Media Covered Ghana’s 2008 Elections’, Mr Otchere-Darko said, “I find it sad that today we all seem to have forgotten how close a significant section of the media and some political parties got us to killing each other. We’ve forgotten the FM calls that incited foot soldiers to march to the Electoral Commission with cudgels, machetes, sticks and stones. We’ve forgotten the dread that grip the nation.”

He continued, “We’ve forgotten how election results that had been counted at polling stations changed at collation centres in such a razor thin. Surely, we cannot forget how some nine or so neighbouring constituencies in a particular region prosecuted a systematic illegal strategy of preventing polling agents of a particular party from undertaking their functions.”

Mr Otchere-Darko warned that 2012 could take Ghana beyond the brink if the weaknesses that facilitated the electoral fraud, intimidation and violence of 2008 are not resolved.

His fear is that “To have such a large scale electoral violence in Ghana may even be worse than what we saw in Kenya or Zimbabwe because in Ghana, events have shown that no ruling party can say it has a monopoly on the allegiance of the security agents when it comes to elections.”

He added, “Beyond that none of the two main political parties can claim any exclusive illicit rights to rigging, whether in government or opposition.”

There is no guarantee that the main opposition party today will not for 2012 assume the kind of dangerously militant posture and speak the kind of language that got Ghana so close to a Kenya, he argued.

“We cannot rule out the possibility of today’s main opposition party assuming an even more militant posture in 2012 than what struck awe and fear in many Ghanaians and international diplomats and observers last December,” the Executive Director of DI said.

He said, the fact of a massively bloated voter register in 2008 gave a legitimate bases for the politicians and their media collaborators to psyche up the Ghanaian public, including their ethno-political sympathisers in the security agencies, that a rival party was planning to or indeed rigging the elections.

Mr Otchere-Darko advised that ‘We should not leave it to the politicians for us to determine the fate of the electoral process and its integrity; we should force it on them because given the chance any political party in any given democracy would rig.”

The Executive Director of the policy think tank said, “Thankfully, Ghana has decided to introduced a biometric voter register. But, I’m afraid if we may not get there.”

His fear is that without sustained pressure the excuse of lack of funding may be used to frustrate the multi-million dollar biometric registration exercise. Experts put the cost of registering some 12 million voters between $20-35 million.

“As at now the District Assembly elections that were to take place in July, then August has no fixed date because the Electoral Commission has not received full funding for it,” he said.

“What is the guarantee that a similar fate may not befall the biometric voter registration, which may require a whole year to implement?” the DI boss remarked.

He told the audience that Ghana may be ahead of the African pack, “But we still have a long road ahead of us and the future of our democracy is by no means certain.”

Mr Otchere-Darko shared a panel with Baffour Ankomah, Editor of the New African Magazine, UK, Nana Serwa Acheampong, and Prof Kwame Karikari. The programme was chaired by Ambassador Kabral Blay-Amihere.

The 3-day conference ‘Mediating Democracy in Africa’ was held at the NIC Conference Hall, Independence Avenue, Accra from 18-20 August.

It attracted speakers and participants from across the globe. The founder and director of the Africa Media & Democracy Conference, Barima Adu-Asamoa said a “vibrant and healthy democracy can be sustained and enhanced by a responsible media,” adding, it is important to “examine the manner in which the media impacts on the democratic process. It is in this respect that this conference assumes relevance.”