EC must go back to the drawing board

A select group of Ghanaian voters participated in the first phase of Election 2016 yesterday, amidst challenges that can be described in certain circumstances as chaotic.

Some political pundits saw the writing on the wall days before yesterday, having raised the red flag over preparations by the Electoral Commission (EC) towards the December 7 polls.

On this journey so far, the Daily Graphic has always drawn attention to the need for more stakeholder engagements in order to get all the players to sing from the same hymn book.

It is always good to adopt the posture of constant engagement in activities that have many interest groups, so that differences can be ironed out for the way forward.

We dare say that for quite some months now there have been so much mistrust among the players on the journey to December 7.

While a section speaks on behalf of the EC and thinks that the election management body is doing well, other players say the EC and its top officials are bent on rigging the elections for a particular candidate and his party.

Sometimes we are quick to dismiss certain claims, but it is important to examine all claims and take steps to deal with the concerns in order to, once again, organise flawless public elections.

Yesterday, some prominent citizens of the continent, led by the Liberian President and a former South African President joined the seven candidates contesting the Presidency to append their signatures to a document known as the Accra Declaration.

It is good to make public declarations, but our actions must support our intents, otherwise the declarations will remain mere paper tigers.

The Daily Graphic is worried that if the EC failed the litmus test conducting a voting process for 127,000 people, then what will happen on December 7, with 15 million voters on the electoral roll, is anybody’s guess.

We are sceptical but not cynical, as we think the EC can pull from the near brink that bedeviled the special voting yesterday. It can only prove the cynics wrong if it returns to the drawing board with all the stakeholders, in the hope that the challenges can be addressed to enable us to have seamless and flawless elections on December 7.

As the people debated what went wrong yesterday, one of the questions that came up was: why has the special voting come into sharp focus this year?

Previously, including 2012 when journalists did not have the opportunity to take part in the special voting, the event passed without hitches.

With the seventh general election just around the corner, the Daily Graphic thinks that the EC should put mechanisms in place to reduce the tension that has always been associated with our elections.

Election 2016 is a test case for Mrs Charlotte Osei, the EC Chair, and she cannot afford to disappoint Ghanaians and the international community.

Many Ghanaians wish her well, but she must listen to the stakeholders and be guided by institutional memory. She cannot afford to fail.