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Democracy is a process
E. Ablorh-Odjidja
January 10, 2013.
Election 2012 is done but the contest has been moved to the
Supreme Court. And it is amazing to think how some people are
reacting to this initiative by the NPP, the opposition party.
They claim love for democracy, yet argue that it is
pointless for the NPP to contest the elections at this late
stage. For the sake of peace and democracy, they want the
nation to accept the result and to move on.
Failing
that, they say, puts our reputation as peace-loving people and
the most politically advanced nation in the region at risk.
And that our democracy will be unnecessarily harmed because of
the legal friction and social tension that will result from
this court action.
They are, however, silent on why
following the dictates of our Constitution will not enhance
our democratic credentials.
Democracy requires a
process that is in constant refinement. For as long as there
are substantial doubts about an issue, like the outcome of an
election, the process is unfinished. Thus, the Constitution
will require a resolve.
For the above reason, we should
rejoice that we are in court and not in the streets killing
each other. We should also hope that the court would fairly
meet its obligation.
A cursory view of the 2012
electoral process may show the necessity for this need to go
to the court for further examination.
In the 2012
elections, there was trouble with the main architecture
supporting the electoral process, the biometric system.
Much was made of this biometric system
before the elections, including the lavish amount spent to
install it. But if failed grossly.
A system that was
purposefully designed to reject unregistered voters ended up
accepting 1.3 million of them. This flaw alone justifies the
claim that the system failed either advertently or
inadvertently.
Either way, we need to know what went
wrong and fix it if our country were to maintain any semblance
of democracy.
There is also the case of the absence of
signatures on some critical “pink sheets”, these being
essentially designed to halt or control electoral fraud.
Why appointed officials of the various
parties, charged to monitor the process, did not sign on some
of the finished “pink sheet” documents must be known. To allow
this failure to stand will be a substantive indictment of the
entire process.
In the interest of a healthy democratic
system, we must know if the NPP assertions are true.
We must know from the exercise of the
court if this party has a legitimate gripe and is an honest
broker or the voice for mere partisan hacks aggrieved by the
seeming loss of the 2012 elections.
Likewise, we must
also be assertive enough to know if and what compelled the
Electoral Commission (EC) to accept the unsigned sheets as
valid, if NPP assertions were true.
This way, we can
build brick by brick what we should commonly and proudly refer
to as “our democracy.”
The injection of the Supreme
Court in the process is a healthy sign of our maturing
democracy. By the same token, there is the need to let the EC
know that it is not enough to have declared the winner of the
elections without first explaining the perceived distortions
in the result.
Call the court exercise the
self-cleansing of our political system without the usual
violence experienced in other countries.
True, honest
people were relieved by the quick declaration of the result of
the 2012 elections by the EC. They were apprehensive about the
violence that could have resulted had the announcement been
delayed.
But the quick fix that resulted is not a
definite cure. That there is no violence now does not preclude
it from the future. The danger is real and lurks in the
simmering present grievances; a potential for a violent future
that no one in his right mind should want. The upheaval in the
Ivory Coast should be a reminder.
The NPP Chairman in
a declaration on January 8, 2013 described the grievances:
“We will prove, just from documented
evidence from the EC itself, that over 12% (1.34 million) of
votes counted were in fact illegal and ought not have been
included in the declared total, and that over 2/3 of this sum,
numbering some 916,000, wrongly went to John Mahama for an
election in which he crossed the mandatory 50% mark by less
than 154,000.”
An election with a mass of over 12% of
unregistered voters anywhere on earth would not be called fair
and transparent. A voting system that has this many
unregistered voters has a very serious flaw that clearly leads
to the perception of fraud and charge of abuse of citizen’s
rights in a democratic system.
If correct, this flaw is a serious threat and must be fixed.
Fortunately, we have the Supreme Court as recourse
that should be preferred to a mob with hatchets in the
streets.
Professor S. Kwaku Asare from the US wrote
recently that, “Unknown to most people, the EC followed the
electoral regulations and annulled the results of some polling
stations with minor verification over voting violations! Yet,
in 4,900 polling stations with similar or more serious
electoral infractions, the EC chose to ignore ….”
Also,
the NPP chairman's assertion to “Consider that only 150,000
invalid Mahama votes are required to push him below 50% and
therefore force a runoff, yet nearly 6 times that amount have
been identified as invalid Mahama votes” is worthy of note.
True or false, the Supreme Court must resolve this
dispute. The democratic process that we claim we cherish and
want depends on it. In the end, if the court proceedings
should prove nothing, it, at least, would have established a
peaceful process for contesting elections, an educational
exercise the rest of Africa would be happy to note.
E. Ablorh-Odjidja,Publsiher www.ghanadot.com,
Washington, DC, January 10, 2013.
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