An election cycle has once again put Ghana’s democratic credentials under the spotlight as the main opposition party has questioned the commitment of the electoral management body to ensuring free and fair polls in December.
These concerns have compelled the opposition leader, John Mahama, to appeal to the international community and election observers “to focus their lenses on Ghana and arrive earlier in-country than ever before.”
He fears there is the “likelihood of continued greater challenges ahead of the election.”
Mr. Mahama, a former President, suspended his campaign tour to voice his concerns at a virtual press conference on Thursday, September 24.
His National Democratic Congress (NDC) has complained that the electoral process has been plagued with irregularities, the latest of which is the purported deletion of the names of registered voters in opposition strongholds.
“It is deeply troubling that the ongoing exhibition of the voters’ register has revealed significant omissions and in some other cases the deletion of the names of registered voters on a wide scale,” Mr. Mahama said.
The NDC has also consistently accused Ghana’s Electoral Commission of colluding with President Akufo-Addo and his New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to rig the 2020 general elections.
Mr. Mahama maintains that the controversial voter registration exercise in June and July was “characterized by bigotry and exclusion” perpetrated by the state security apparatus “which is now filled with vigilante elements loyal to the ruling NPP.”
Of concern to some observers will be Mr. Mahama’s continued insistence that he and his party “will not accept the result of a flawed election.”
The Electoral Commission has, however, denied the claims made against it by the opposition.
As far as it is concerned, its management of the electoral roll has been without blemish.
In a statement the commission released the night before Mr. Mahama spoke, it went on the defensive saying the opposition’s “allegations are unfounded.”
The commission remains confident that it “will bequeath the nation with a Register that reflects truth and integrity, a Register that is credible and comprises eligible Ghanaians only.”
Friction between the opposition party and Electoral Commission are almost rites of passage in a typical election year. Ghana’s eighth straight election since the last military government has been no different.
These frictions normally revolve around contentions over the credibility of the voter register.
Ahead of the 2016 election, President Akufo-Addo’s NPP, then an opposition party, called for the compilation of a new voter register, describing the existing one as lacking credibility because it allegedly contained foreigners.
Current Vice President Mahamadu Bawumia famously alleged at the time that there were more than 76,000 Togolese nationals illegally registered in Ghana to vote.
Now in power, the governing NPP maintains that Ghana is on the path to free and fair polls despite all the allegations.
A day before Mr. Mahama and the NDC conveyed their anxieties to the international community, President Akufo-Addo had used his address to the UN General Assembly to assure the world that Ghana’s election “will be transparent, free, fair, safe and credible.”
With the eyes of the world on him, President Akufo-Addo said he was looking forward to the December polls “passing off peacefully, with characteristic Ghanaian dignity.”