Heed Asantehene’s appeal regarding election results

 IT comes as great admoni­tion the appeal from the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, to candidates in the presidential and parliamentary elections to accept the verdict of Ghanaians when they release it on December 7.

For some time, most of the conversations in the public space border on the need for the country to have another peaceful general election, the eighth in the Fourth Republic.

Many have proffered vari­ous ways to make the election peaceful.

Yesterday, The Ghanaian Times, for instance, even took the trouble to briefly explain in its editorial how peaceful elections could pass beginning with their credibility.

The paper said in part that credibility and peacefulness are two critical conditions that un­derpin successful elections.

Then for the benefit of those who would wonder how exactly credibility helps to ensure peace­ful elections, its characteristics of inclusiveness, transparency, accountability, and competitive­ness were briefly explained.

Keen observation or analy­sis of the conversations would confirm that to a large extent, the spotlight is on how well the Electoral Commission (EC) and the electorate or the populace, for that matter, should conduct themselves.

This means the candidates in the elections, both presidential and parliamentary, are spared as if they are not a problem, even though they can be very mischie­vous.

In view of this, the Asante­hene’s appeal becomes very important and an area the public should consider critically.

Checks about how electoral chaos results have it that it is the candidates, particularly the weak and the also-runs, who incite people to violence and when things go awry, even elections that have already passed as peaceful would take an opposite turn.

Do we remember Etienne Tsh­isekedi, the DR Congo politician who founded the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) opposition party in 1982 and fought the political admin­istrations of Mobutu Sese Seko, Laurent Kabila, and later his son Joseph Kabila?

It is on record that he made a strategic error when he boycot­ted the relatively credible 2006 elections

However, he participated in 2011 and ended up coming second in a hard-fought contest, which he saw as a less credible election and as such did not accept the results.

In the end, the then 78-year-old Tshisekedi proclaimed himself president in a parallel swearing-in ceremony with his 32 per cent of the 18 million votes cast against 59 per cent earned by Joseph Kabila, saying: “I con­sider these results a real provoca­tion of the Congolese people”.

Clashes broke out between tyre-burning protesters and secu­rity forces in the capital, Kin­shasa, and elsewhere like Limite, where gunshots rang out, and Bandale, where protesters also threw stones at a heavy contin­gent of armed police, who fired tear gas to disperse them.

The situation was worsen­ing to the extent that the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon had to urge Congolese to avoid violence over the results.

With the DR Congo example of how misunderstanding over election results turned violent, we reiterate Asantehene’s appeal that both presidential and parliamentary candidates in the country’s December 7 elections should be prepared to accept the results as the people’s verdict and avoid inciting their supporters to unnecessary violence.

Meanwhile, all candidates, their agents and supporters should be extra-vigilant at the polling stations and elsewhere and report anything untoward to security personnel around.

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