Editorial: Fallout From 2024 Elections: Why EC Must Introduce Reforms

The New Patriotic Party (NPP), according to a story we published yesterday, has urged the National Election Security Taskforce to provide security for the Electoral Commission to undertake the re-collation of parliamentary results of constituencies in contention.

According to the party, it is necessary to provide adequate security to avert the reoccurrence of the mayhem visited on the process by supporters of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), which allegedly compelled EC returning officers to declare results in their favour.

Addressing a news conference in Accra on Monday, this week, former chairman of the NPP, Peter Mac Manu, criticised the opposition NDC for allegedly interfering in the collation process.He expressed concern over the actions of some NDC supporters, which he claimed had contributed to the delays in declaring results in these constituencies.

“We call on the NDC leadership to demonstrate responsible leadership by calling their supporters to order. This is a crucial time for our nation, and no action should undermine our democratic processes,” he reiterated.

Earlier, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) officials, who were at the new collation centre – the Police Training School at Tesano, a suburb of Accra, had protested vehemently against what they described as re-declaration going on at the centre. The party subsequently went to court to secure an injunction order against the process at Tesano.

Before the NDC proceeded to court, their National Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, had also addressed a news conference where he protested strongly against the re-collation going on at the police training school. In the view of The Chronicle, the accusations and counter accusations going on between the two major political parties point to the fact that there must be reforms at the Electoral Commission (EC).

In the year 2020, NDC accused the EC of collaborating with the NPP to steal the seats they had legitimately won. Four years down the line, NPP is also making similar accusations that seats they have won are being taken away from them. In our opinion, the only way to solve this problem once and for all is the early declaration of the results.

What The Chronicle has observed is that because the political parties are always ahead of the EC when it comes to the collation of the result from the polling stations, they know the seats they have won. If these seats are not enough for them, they try the usual tricks of winning more seats through the backdoor.

One of the fascinating things is that sometimes the pink sheets produced by these parties are different from what is in the custody of the EC. On some occasions too, the EC also produces pink sheets that do not tally with what the political parties have.

A critical analysis of the development will point to the fact that some machinations are going on, which is very dangerous and can plunge the country into chaos.

In view of this, The Chronicle suggests that the EC must open up its doors to other state institutions such as the judiciary and the police in the 2028 general elections.

For instance, a robust digital platform can be created for the EC, Police and the Judiciary. The purpose of this platform is for all the presiding officers to take a shot of the pink sheet in each of the polling stations and WhatsApp them to this common platform, which the political parties are already doing anyway.

In this case, should any of the disputing political parties produce a controversial pink sheet, the system can fall on the police and judiciary to confirm or otherwise. Though the EC may not be interested in this suggestion because of the previous experience where its system was allegedly hacked, it is the only panacea that can solve controversial pink sheets being generated by the political parties to justify their positions that they have won a particular seat.

We believe that if all stakeholders put their heads together to discuss the issue, they can find a common solution to it.  Whether we like it or not, hacking has become part and parcel of our digital space. What we need to do is to build a strong resilience to avert it.

Though our cherished democracy, when compared with other African countries is way above average, what happened in 2020 and repeating itself in 2024, is a danger staring at all of  us in the face and if nothing is done about it, can spell a doom for the country in the near future.

This is the reason why we are putting forward the above suggestion for the EC to adopt to cure any political party that will try to be mischievous. We hope the EC and all the stakeholders are listening to us.

The post Editorial: Fallout From 2024 Elections: Why EC Must Introduce Reforms appeared first on The Ghanaian Chronicle.

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