"Concede, if you lose," said Chief Annan

E. Ablorh-Odjidja
December 12, 2016

First, I must concede my delight on noticing what I thought was a bite of humor in the above pronouncement, in spite of the seriousness of the admonition.

The statement was reported to have been made by Mr. Kofi Annan, the former Secretary General of the UN, by ClassFM of Ghana on December 09, 2016.

It had been almost two days after the December 07 elections and the results were yet to be stated or confirmed by the officials at the Electoral Commission.

It became obvious that the report on the election results was being delayed. Some speculated that invisible hands at the Electoral Commission were holding back the report.

It was at this moment that Chief Annan was said to have spoken, “Any presidential candidate who loses in the December 7 elections must accept defeat without delay in order to calm tensions.”

In a sense, he was also urging a quick issuance of the final report on the elections.

What we are not assuming here is what Chief Annan knew at the time before he made the declaration.

But we can't help reading into his statement the humor that was directed at a probable mischief in the making, which was plainly obvious.

In these days of fast computer technology and computations, you couldn't have avoided noticing the absurdity buried in the long delay - and the stalemate created by the silence of officials who were positioned to know better.

Chief Annan is known for his sense of humor. Also known is his ability to be diplomatic when it is called for. He knows the history of contested elections and their consequent affairs, often of unsavory natures in Africa.

The last troubled elections in Ghana was in 2012. The potential strife was defused and peace prevailed only as a result of court action.

And the NDC, the current administration, was able to continue in power, even though evidences revealed by the opposition party, of tampering and poll manipulations, were as obvious as festooned flags.

But NDC's victory was accepted by all; more in a manner of concession for peace than for truth in 2012 results.

This time around, there was to be something different.

The same opposition party, the NPP, that had contested bitterly the 2012 results in court, had no congenial reason for going back to the courts in 2016. So they took legitimate measures to forestall that possibility.

The NDC, soon to appear as the losing party and obviously reluctant to concede, was loath to encourage a fast release of results that had gone against them.

And they had no appetite for appearance in front of justices of the court for a second time, on a similar case that could this time go against them.

In tandem with the Electoral Commission, some said, they forestalled the fast release of the results.

Finally, the results were declared.  It was stark clear that the NPP had won and the NDC had lost the 2016 presidential election.

Something revelatory and new had happened at the announcement of the 2016 result this time around:. A political discernment in the conduct of electoral affairs that so far had been elusive to countries in Africa had happened.

In effect, the continent had gained a new electoral policing tool:  That it was possible to prevent vote count fraud by the government in office.

The ease of the discovery was stunning, as an article published by Africa Report on December 12, 2016 revealed in the unfolding 2016 campaign drama.

The NPP, the opposition party, had all along been wary.  So, they set up on their own a separate but complimentary system for collecting and collating electoral data on the results; in real time, as the numbers came out from constituencies and regions in the country.

Thus, as the results went to the Electoral Commission's system, at a separate and different location, the same showed on a computer hub at NPP headquarters.

And the NPP instantly released the results and total counts to the public in real time.

They knew the total count with certainty, as the numbers came in from the polling stations.  They had won.

The Electoral Commission, controlled by the party in power, was not ready to announce the obvious. 

But, by revealing the total count to the public, the NPP made it obvious and impossible for any party to fudge the results; thereby, a sort of a Mexican standoff was produced.  Advantage, NPP.

Hitherto no party in opposition had the means to collect, verify and collate the votes, as  offered to the public via the state controlled Electoral Commissioner.

The Commission's computer screens were telling them the same story the NPP was announcing to the public.  Consequently, its own initiative went frozen. Even if they had any inclination to fudge the numbers, they couldn't do so now with the results produced by the NPP already made public.

A new reality was taking shape that the Commission had never seen or anticipated at this stage.

So, what did Chief Annan also know at this point in time?  Probably, more than the average citizen.

It would be interesting to opine that he knew a Mexican standoff was on, which was why he made his statement.

While the Electoral Commission dallied, the NDC refuted immediately the NPP claim of electoral victory.

Finally, when the Commission made the call, the earlier numbers provided by the NPP did not change.

The NPP had won the 2016 presidential elections.

Meanwhile, the public, as usual, was caught in tense partisan stances that could possibly have resulted in nasty consequences in the streets, had the tension been maintained for long.

Party members at the NPP headquarters were very elated. Their stratagem for data collection to defeat voting fraud had worked. They had known this since the polls closed on election day.

Presumably, the feelings were not the same at NDC headquarters and at the offices of the Electoral Commission.

The problem for the Commission had been not so much with the NPP action, though it had created an unusual scenario for them. It was with NDC inaction. How do you break the bad news to the sitting NDC government?

The Commission, as state instrument, has for years maintained a monopoly on the outcome of electoral vote counts, like Rome on the Bible before Luther.

What to do now when the knowledge of the results were already on NPP election result screens and in public?

Presumably, it was at this stage when Chief Annan issued his statement.

“Concede if you lose.” he said, perhaps with humor, a quality which would not be strange to his nature.

The Chief is a master of understatement, with a cutting edge of sarcasm that could only be heard under breath in a heated chess match:  "checkmate," and the slap with a piece on the board!

The game was over for the NDC government and they knew it.  "Concede, if you lose" must have sounded like a fatal chokehold in the Mexican standoff!

The stalemate the government had created so far became indicative of either they were stalling for time to cheat or trying hard to make the whole country look stupid by cancelling the entire 2016 elections!

But soon after Chief Kofi spoke, the hierarchy within the NDC folded and the concessions came through.  Gracefully, all parties in the contest accepted the result.

So, Ghana was in the clear this time and her image got enhanced by the conduct of the 2016 elections.

She had also provided a significant example of electoral supervision tool: how to frame and guard election results of a Third World country as the votes come in.

Perhaps, the Ghana model can be replicated to prevent corrupt elections elsewhere in Africa.

At the same time and in spite of the positive nature of this 2016 elections result, some caution: Don't celebrate yet.

We have seen enough to make us wary of seemingly congenial political outcomes in Africa.

We have seen ideas and concepts that we thought could work. But there was always a slip in the transition.

We saw the hopeful transition from President Kufuor to President Atta Mills and then to President John Mahama.

The regression that followed after the 2009 NDC victory, concerning inter political party relationship, is a bitter experience to recall now.

Our history is replete with few advances and many setbacks. And our ability to conjure up defeat in our moments of victory has also become legendary.

But the real story can be told in how we celebrate our little and big victories in the coming years. The trend would tell whether we had turned the corner for the homestretch - to civilized and matured reception of election results.

We can only hope for the best now.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, December 12, 2016.
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