Africa
By Paul Ejime
CIVIL Society Organisations (CSOs) and other major stakeholders have called for the intervention of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to ensure peaceful General Elections in Ghana on 7 December 2024.
During consultations with the ECOWAS Long-Term Observation Mission Core Team, representatives of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), the National Media Commission (NMC) and the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), among others, expressed optimism that the electoral process would be successful.
However, they said ECOWAS should lead the international community by deploying its time-tested preventative diplomatic tools to extract consensus from all the political actors particularly the leadership of the opposition NDC and the ruling NPP to put national interest above their differences.
Emmanuel Akwetey, executive director of the IDEG, Dr Festus Aubin, WANEP’s Regional Coordinator, George Sarpong, Executive Secretary, NMC, and Rebecca Ekpe, Public Affairs Officer of GJA, highlighted the low trust level in some public institutions among the citizens as one of the key challenges to be addressed.
There is also the widely perceived low level of trust among citizens in some government institutions.
The opposition NDC, for instance, has set conditions before it could sign the pre-election Peace Agreement facilitated by the National Peace Council (NPC). However, the NPC has assured the ECOWAS Observation Mission that all stakeholders would sign the Accord on Thursday 28 November.
For the first time, Ghana has a hung parliament resulting in the opposition party producing the Speaker of the Legislature. The decision by four MPs to quit their parties and the Supreme Court’s recent ruling stopping the Speaker from declaring the seats of the MPs vacant have raised the issue of the independence of both arms of government.
The parliament has adjourned indefinitely, which could jeopardise the legislative approval of the supplementary budget for the political transition.
Also of concern is the wave of misinformation, disinformation, fake news and hate speeches employed by political opponents as well as the lingering violent extremism and vigilantism, amid the fear that some politicians could still import/use private security personnel to disrupt the electoral process.
While hopeful that Ghana has a tradition of riding similar waves during elections, the CSOs still believe that ECOWAS intervention would be beneficial this time.
“ECOWAS is unlike other observers, because of our shared destiny and the fact that what happens to Ghana affects other members of the Community,” Sarpong added.
Madam Ekpe noted that media ownership and content regulation remain a major challenge because some politicians use their mediums as propaganda tools.
She, however, pointed out that the GJA with the support of development partners has been involved in a series of training for journalists on the dos and don’ts during elections.
Meanwhile, Sarpong took time to explain to the ECOWAS observers, the operation of a digital application indigenously developed by the NMC, the Ghana Media Watch, which is capable of revolutionising the electoral process with features for effective monitoring and tracking of activities at polling stations as well as results management and projection.
Tags: Dr Festus Aubin ECOWAS Emmanuel Akwetey George Sarpong Paul Ejime WANEP
