And Incites Death Threats On Afari Gyan
In what is proving to be a very dangerous mission to appease the disgruntled reinstated 2012 flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), former President Kufuor has degenerated into beating the war drum and heightening the political temperature in the country by launching scurrilous attacks on the Electoral Commission (EC), which is acting in fulfilment of a constitutional requirement in Article 47 subsections 1 to 7 of the 1992 constitution as regards the creation of 45 new constituencies ahead of the 2012 elections.
It is an open secret that the defeated 2008 flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Williams Nana Akufo-Addo, blamed former President Kufuor for his inability to assume the presidency in the election that saw his hope crush, as he lost to National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Professor John Evans Atta Mills in the 2008 presidential election.
Mr Kufuor’s conduct, supported by the rest of the NPP, is ostensibly inciting those that the NPP flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, calls militants of the party who are suspected to be behind death threats on Dr Afari Djan. The EC chairman considers the threat as a tactical move to intimidate him to renege on his responsibility of creating the new constituencies, a dereliction of duty that will satisfy the whims and caprices of the NPP.
The EC chairman was reacting to the NPP’s death threatening pressures at a high level forum organised by the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG) on the theme, ‘Two Decades Of Electoral Reforms In Ghana: The Biometric Voter Registration Systems In Perspective.’
The EC, which undertook the same exercise under the Kufuor regime by creating 30 new constituencies to add to the existing 200 at the time, faced virtually no hindrance to its work. So tongues are wagging as to what game former President Kufuor is playing now by deliberately inciting the public against the highly respected state institution that has an enviable track record.
The NPP has been up in arms against the EC since it first announced its decision to fulfil the constitutional requirement by creating new constituencies to fill the gap created after the creation of new districts by the government.
What is least expected is that a senior citizen and statesman of Mr Kufuor’s stature would jump to the fray and continue to incite the public against the highly respected EC chairman, who has supervised all elections in the 4th republic since 1992. Mr Kufuor and his NPP have been beneficiaries of 2 of the 5 elections conducted by the EC under Dr Afari Djan by way of electoral victories in the 2000 and 2004 elections as against NDC’s 1992, 1996 and 2008.
NPP lawyers including former Attorney General under the Kufuor region, Mr Ayecquaye Otoo, are currently in court seeking to help three individuals use the legal system to block the EC from performing its duty.
Also, NPP members of parliament have resorted to gerrymandering in the august house in their bid to ensure the 45 new constituencies become a fiasco.
Indications are that the NPP, by its assessment of the new constituencies, feel it will not gain electorally from the exercise, hence its attempts to scuttle it by any means possible.
Whiles addressing a cross-section of the youth from around the country at a three-day workshop organized by his foundation, the J.A Kufour Foundation in collaboration with the International Republic Institute, Mr. Kufour once again seized the opportunity to cast doubt on the integrity of the EC and its chairman who on two occasions handed him electoral victory in the past.
Toeing his party’s line of ‘all-die-be-die,’ Mr Kufuor postulated that any lack of fairness to parties contesting in the 2012 elections on the part of the EC, could spark unnecessary tension and violent acts for the country, a subtle threat against the EC and the good people of Ghana.
Mr Kufuor also had this to say on Radio XYZ; “The electoral commission is accountable to the people of Ghana, it is not a law on itself or superior to the constitution so when we are appealing to it, we are not meddling or interfering” adding that “we are only saying for the peace of the country, we really appeal to the electoral commission to wait till after the elections and then they can come out and do such things”.
Since Mr Kufuor decided to lead his party’s opposition to the creation of the new constituencies, Dr Afari Gyan has become a victim of insults and vilification from the NPP and its media hirelings.
One wonders whether the laws of Ghana now operate on the moral appeals of Mr Kufuor and his NPP, who are apparently pursuing a parochial partisan interest as regards the creation of the 46 new districts and the subsequent creation of the 45 new constituencies in fulfilment of a constitutional requirement in Article 47 subsections 1 to 7 of the 1992 constitution.
The NPP opposed the creation of the new districts but lost the argument as the government went ahead to ensure the new districts were inaugurated for better and effective administration of the country.