GIBA expresses concern over elections anxiety
The President of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association (GIBA), Mr Akwasi Agyemang, has expressed concern about the state of anxiety prevailing in the country in the run-up to the general election.
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He pointed out that although there had been presidential and parliamentary elections since the country returned to constitutional rule in 1992, the current atmosphere was not conducive for a peaceful election come November 7, 2016.
Mr Agyemang, who was addressing a media encounter organised by Vodafone Ghana in Takoradi, noted that Ghana faced the challenge of consolidating its democracy with the seeming charged political atmosphere, adding that the country was also confronted with the challenge of making elections meaningful.
“There is a lot of anxiety before our elections in November and this kind of atmosphere makes people not interested in investing their money in the economy. Although we have had elections previously without any marked problems, yet there is still a cause for alarm now,” the GIBA president observed.
In relation to the media, Mr Agyemang said practitioners needed to exhibit a high sense of professionalism which actualised the right to freedom of expression and added that “as media men and women, we need to understand the election processes to be able to educate the people”.
He stressed that journalists ought to know their journalistic rights and responsibilities and also be fair in the coverage of elections by not just reporting but putting matters in their proper perspective and context.
Mr Agyemang pointed out that practitioners should be able to differentiate between election reportage and election observance, explaining that media people had no right to question election officials extensively during the polls, since they were only there to report.
‘‘Let us not compromise our ‘watchdog’ roles as journalists and let us not also engage in sending out reports that will poison the atmosphere and in the end incur the displeasure and mistrust of the people,” he emphasised, adding that the media should desist from ‘jumping the gun’ by calling the outcome of the polls and declaring winners of elections.
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Mr Agyemang also expressed grave concern about the way social media was heading nowadays, stressing that it was becoming very dangerous and a recipe for confusion for the country’s future elections, since some people could manufacture election results.