Tag: Ghana

We began a discourse last week on electoral perspectives from Ghana. The concluding part of that discourse here follows:

Any observer of the Ghanaian society wouldn’t fail to see that the polity pulses presently with indications that the November 2016 elections will be hard fought by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP), among other parties. But the contest that is more at issue is the presidential contest. What makes the Ghanaian presidential office so keenly contested, perhaps, is the wide powers of the occupant under the country’s laws. There are currently 10 regions in Ghana, which are rough equivalents of the Nigerian states, and these regions are administered by regional ministers. But unlike the Nigerian model where state governors are elected by voters, independent of, and in some cases on political platforms different from the President’s, Ghanaian regional ministers are appointees of the country’s President. In effect, the President exercises proxy control over all the regions, while office holders at other administrative levels below the regions are also mostly executive appointees.

A bigger concern about presidential powers, as it seemed from conversations by various stakeholders during the visit by former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, was the mode of appointment of the chairperson of Ghana’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) and the perceived implication for constitutional independence of the commission. The Nigerian model where the electoral chief is appointed by the President in consultation with the National Council State, and subject to confirmation by the Senate, is itself very far from the ideal. But many Ghanaians considered it better still than their country’s model whereby the chairperson of the electoral commission is an appointee at the sole discretion of the President, with no requirement for parliamentary confirmation. And unlike in Nigeria where the INEC chair serves a term of five years, renewable only once, the Ghanaian counterpart is a permanent appointee until the retirement age of 70 years. Some stakeholders expressed the fear that the civil service nature of the office ordinarily could make an occupant beholden to a sitting government; and the scenario, in their view, is all the more dicey for the forthcoming elections because the present NEC chairperson was appointed by the incumbent President, who is also a candidate for the 2016 poll.

Professor Jega argued, however, that the mode of appointment of the electoral commission need not constrain its neutrality if the commissioners apply their hearts to their constitutionally guaranteed independence. He also noted that there might be some merit in continuity, if positively applied. All stakeholders, he said, must therefore work with the Ghanaian commission to enable it to live up to the global best practice of impartiality in election administration and holding the playing field level for all political parties.

The experience of the visit to Ghana showed that electoral democracy, like mass communication, makes the world a global village. That point was effectively proven by conversations during the visit, and was perhaps best underscored by a proposition from the Ghanaian Chief Justice, Lady Justice Theodora Wood. In a parley with the former INEC chairman, the Chief Justice mooted the idea that election management bodies in Africa should consider taking polling officers across national borders on ad hoc basis to conduct other countries’ elections. This, in her view, could redress the endemic challenge whereby polling officials are poorly perceived in their native countries, and enhance the integrity of elections across the continent. Well, the Lady Justice has spoken. As Her Lordship pleases!

Ghanaians will be heading to the poll in November 2016 to elect their President and parliamentarians for another four-year term. General election dates in Ghana are statutorily predetermined, different from the Nigerian model where the electoral commission sets election dates within a statutory time frame; and the November 2016 schedule is a recent adjustment in the country’s laws from December when general elections used to hold – including that in 2012. The 2016 elections are nearly one year away, but the Ghanaian polity is already charged with partisan jostling for advantage and leverage ahead of the scheduled poll. Although there are 23 political parties currently on record in the country, the political landscape is sharply polarised between the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). These are the two major parties that drive electoral contestation in contemporary Ghanaian democracy and historically alternated in the control of power.

For elections that are yet many months away, partisan pitches on issues of mutual interest in the country struck a strident note rather early. This may because the two major parties have already settled for their presidential candidates: Incumbent President John Dramani Mahama is running for re-election on the NDC platform, while Nana Akuffu Addo is carrying the flag for the NPP. Again, this is different from the Nigerian model where, by law, candidates emerge definitively just about three months to the date of election. The line-up for the 2016 presidential race portends a rematch of the 2012 contest that produced a slim victory for the incumbent over the opposition candidate.

Many Ghanaians are fascinated by the 2015 general election in Nigeria and are keen to learn a thing or two that worked for our country as they approach their own elections. Consequently, a leading public policy think-tank, the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) Ghana, invited the former Chair of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, to come share Nigeria’s experience of the last general election with Ghanaian stakeholders and, thereby, enrich ongoing political conversation in the country. Professor Jega was in that neighbouring country for the whole of the penultimate week at the instance of the IEA Ghana, and he invited me along.

First, the general context: Partisans have dug deeply into polar trenches on nearly all issues about the Ghanaian political process, and there was high expectation in the polity ahead of the ex-INEC Chair’s visit that what he would have to say might strengthen one position against the other in the raging conversation. But no expectation could fail more woefully, as Professor Jega decidedly stayed out of the partisan fray and stuck to the middle ground of simply telling the Nigerian story and leaving the stakeholders to pick whatever lessons they could therefrom. Thankfully, there is convergence of opinions across the partisan divide on many aspects of the Nigerian electoral process. Most Ghanaians, for instance, were impressed by Nigeria’s chip-enabled Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) and the verification of voters by Smart Card Readers, which overreached the bar code-scanning device that was deployed in their country for the 2012 general election. Many also confessed their fascination with the transparency of the Nigerian collation procedure. They were particularly enamoured with the role of senior academics – including vice-chancellors – as Returning Officers and Collation Officers at different constituency levels, and the fact that collation was done and results announced under live telecast by media cameras. The live telecast afforded them watching first hand on television in their country as former Niger Delta Minister Godsday Orubebe held up the collation of presidential results during the 2015 general election, and Professor Jega’s calm but firm response. Many recalled staying glued to their screens as they witnessed the infamous drama play out.

Pertaining to the Ghanaian process, however, there were a number of issues on which opinions sharply diverged among stakeholders, and for which they looked to the Nigerian model for usable lessons. The sorest point seemed to be what to do with the country’s biometric Register of Voters that was compiled in 2012, and which many perceived as dubious because of an allegedly substantial presence of multiple registration records and ineligible persons like the deceased, minors as well as foreigners on it. The concern in the polity stemmed from a common expectation that there will be a marginal difference in the votes for the two leading presidential contenders in the forthcoming election, hence the possibility of the ineligible numbers being added up to the tally could effectively but falsely determine the outcome. But while there is agreement across the partisan divide that something needs to be done with the register, what is to be done is far from being settled: Whereas the opposition camp and supporters would want the existing register jettisoned and a fresh voter registration conducted like Nigeria did before the 2011 elections, the ruling party and allies prefer that the register be cleaned up and optimised like Nigeria did before the 2015 elections. What makes the issue a bit complicated, perhaps, is the fact that Ghana’s present mode of voter identification is rather permissive – like Nigeria’s discarded Temporary Voter Cards (TVCs), and unlike the PVCs that were products of an optimised Register of Voters where multiple records of registration have already been eliminated.

In his meetings with the Ghanaian stakeholders, the ex-INEC Chair declined to prescribe one way or the other on the partisan preferences, as many desired him to do only to strengthen their own positions. He rather admonished politicians and their supporters to shed partisan moulds and jointly undertake a rational and dispassionate reality check on the existing register to determine the acceptable threshold of credibility that would advise whether to dump it or clean it up. That was what Nigeria did in 2011, and upon which it built ahead of the 2015 elections. A true reality check must necessarily take account of available time before the impending elections and cost implication for the Ghanaian treasury in determining the viable option.

Meanwhile, there is already a raging debate on the budget for Ghana’s 2016 elections – even without the component for compiling a new Register of Voters or cleaning up the existing one. Not a few stakeholders considered the budget by the country’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) bogus, and there were reports that the government had indicated it would only be able to part-fund the budget and require assistance from Donors to underwrite the balance. But Donor representatives mentioned to Professor Jega that the size of the proposed budget was a hard sell for them to convince their parent bodies to come up with the required support. The ex-INEC Chair shared Nigeria’s experience as being that the government wholly funds election budgets, leaving only ancillary programmes for Donors to provide support.

If you asked me, it was a humbling experience seeing Nigeria being looked up to for guidance by another highly regarded country. But it was also a monumental challenge, I think, for role modeling that this country has a tough task ahead sustaining.