Resolve electoral disputes peacefully

Daily Graphic, Wed. Dec. 10/08 Pg 31

Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho

THE Carter Centre has encourgaed all stakeholders in the just ended elections to use post election dispute resolution measures to ensure the peaceful resolution of electoral challenges in accordance with the country's constitution.
It has, therefore, lauded efforts by the Supreme Court of Ghana to address deficiencies in the electoral dispute process by dedicating judges to expedite legal challenges.
These were the preliminary statements of the Centre, read by the former Botswana President, Mr Quett Ketumile Masire, at a press conference in Accra.
Mr Masire led a 57-member observer team from the Cater Centre in the United States of America (USA), to observe the just ended presidential and parliamentary elections.
The Centre which observed the elections in 300 polling stations in 30 districts across the country, was established in 1982 by former US President Mr Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn Carter.
It is committed, among other issues, to advancing human rights and alleviating unnecessary human suffering and, therefore, seeks to prevent and resolve conflicts, enhance freedom and democracy and improve health.
In the statement, the former Bostwana President commended Ghanaians for undertaking a peacefull elections saying that “Ghana is becoming a model democracy in the region and abroad. The Electoral Commission of Ghana continues to enjoy international recognition for its exemplary conduct”.
“We commend the efforts of Ghana's political parties, civil society, religious leaders, and others who actively promoted the peaceful contentstation of power as a prerequisite for Ghana's continued democratic development”, he added.
He said that the Center fully expects that as the final vote is tabulated, any challenges to the results will be handled peacefully through existing and constitutionally sanctioned procedures in an open and transparent manner.
Mr Masire went further to state that the competitiveness of the process is already apparent in the large number of parliamentary seats that have changed hands and commended “both the honest election and gracious defeat of contesting candidates, as well as the rights of all Ghanaian citizens to participate freely in the political process”.
According to the statement, the Centre in its mission however observed some strenghts and weaknesses in the just ended elections some of which were that while Ghana generally enjoys a strong legal framework for elections, the implementation of this legislation has not been consistent and mentioned some key areas where there were inconsistencies with the electoral legislation include the number of party agents per polling stations, the placement of party seals on ballot boxes during opening and closing and the determination of voter intent during the count.
The statement said while these issues did not appear to affect the integrity of the process and in some instances may have strengthened its transparency, it urged the Electoral Commission to ensure that practices and election legislation are aligned.
It further recommended that in future the EC should allocate additional voting booths on the basis of the number of registered voters per polling station to avoid situations where voters stayed in queues for long hours.
It also observed that although procedures for voting were largely followed in the majority of polling places visited, several procedures had the ability to undermine the secrecy of the ballot this it said was because in some places the privacy screen for voting did not adequately shield the voter from view.