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ALLOW COUNCIL OF
STATE TO DO ITS WORK, AKUFO-ADDO URGES
MAHAMA
“I would respectfully urge the President to
abide by the Constitution and allow the
Council of State do its work openly and
transparently, so that the final product
will engender broad public confidence. It is
important for the strengthening of our
democracy. This is, in effect, the first
time such an appointment is being made under
the Fourth Republican Constitution – hence
the anxiety of the public that we should get
it right. I have no doubt that the
President, the avowed democrat that he is,
will not fail the people of Ghana in this
regard.”
These were the words of Nana Addo Dankwa
Akufo-Addo, the 2016 Presidential Candidate
of the New Patriotic Party, when he
addressed a packed hall of students at the
University of Cape Coast, in a meeting of
the Tertiary Students Confederacy (TESCON),
on Saturday, April 18, 2015.
Contributing to the ongoing debate about who
replaces the soon-to-retire Chairman of the
Electoral Commission, Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan,
Nana Akufo-Addo explained that the Fourth
Republican Constitution makes it explicitly
and unambiguously clear about who has the
responsibility to appoint the Chairman of
the EC.
In an apparent response to some who say
President Mahama must be left alone to
select the new EC boss, Nana Akufo-Addo’s
message to them was simple.
“All citizens of Ghana have a stake in the
appointment. Hence, the importance of public
opinion in the process. The framers of the
Constitution were keenly aware of the
impropriety inherent in allowing the
President, a political player, to play a
critical role in selecting the political
referee. Hence the constitutional
arrangements of Article 70(2) of our
Constitution,” he said.
Article 70(2) provides that, “The President
shall, acting on the advice of the Council
of State, appoint the Chairman, Deputy
Chairmen, and other members of the Electoral
Commission.”
This constitutional provision, according to
Nana Akufo-Addo, imposes an obligation on
the President to act on the advice of the
Council of State in appointing the Chairman
and Members of the EC.
“Advice in this context refers to a binding
instruction given by one constitutional
officer to another. Thus, when Article 70(2)
provides that the President shall act on the
advice of the Council of State, it
contemplates that the Council of State will
put in place a mechanism to search for, vet
and nominate a candidate for the President
to appoint,” Nana Addo explained.
He continued, “In many, many other
jurisdictions across the world, whoever
successfully emerges as head of the
Electoral Commission is put through a
rigorous selection procedure, which includes
wide stakeholder consultation, vetting by a
committee, often in public, and finally,
approval by a special majority (⅔ or ¾) of
the legislature. Appointment by the
President is then a formality.”
On who should replace his “three year Legon
Hall roommate, Dr. Kwadwo Afari Gyan”, Nana
Addo outlined the qualities the eventual
choice of the Council of State must possess.
“He/She must be an efficient person, with an
independent, impartial spirit, who generates
confidence across the wider reaches of the
society, and who owes his/her duty not to
the government of the day, but to the people
of Ghana,”
The person, Nana Addo added, must restore
the confidence of the people in the EC once
again.
Ghana, according to the NPP flagbearer,
cannot afford to get the choice of the new
EC boss wrong, maintaining that “the surest
way to safeguarding our democracy is
ensuring that we have credible elections”,
as the institution mandated by the 1992
Constitution to conduct and supervise public
elections “must be seen by the citizenry and
all stakeholders to be fair and ready to
uphold the sovereign will of voters in their
choice of their leaders.”
In recent years, a litany of events have
dented the confidence of the public in the
Electoral Commission.
These include the presidential election
petition of 2013; the nullification by the
Supreme Court of the use by the EC of NHIS
cards as identification for voter
registration; and the recent cancellation of
the District Assembly and Unit Committee
elections, on which $100 million of public
money was spent.
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