WANEP, NPC deploy 510 observers for 2024 election 

The West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) and the National Peace Council (NPC) have deployed 510 accredited observers to 276 medium- to high-risk areas across the constituencies in the country.

The deployment includes 319 observers from WANEP and 191 from the NPC, covering all 16 regions. Of the total number of observers, 370 are female and 140 are male.

The Chairman of the NPC, Rev. Dr Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, made this announcement on Friday, December 6, while revealing the establishment of the Election Situation Room (ESR) to monitor the 2024 elections.

The ESR will monitor, report, analyse, and facilitate responses to violent threats that may disrupt the peaceful conduct of the Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

It is a key component of the Electoral Violence Monitoring, Analysis, and Mitigation (E-MAM) project, which aims to reduce election-related violence in 12 West African countries through National Early Warning Systems (NEWS).

Composition 

The ESR comprises five operational sections: the Data Gathering Room, Analysis Room, Decision Room, Fact-checking Room and Communication Room.

The NPC and WANEP will from December 6-8, 2024, operate the centralised ESR at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra. 

In May this year, Rev. Dr Adu-Gyamfi said the NPC and WANEP, in partnership with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the ECOWAS Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC) and United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), launched the National Election Response Group (NERG) and Regional Election Response Group (RERG).

The primary objective of NERG/RERG is to engage in discussions, develop response strategies, and recommend actions to address potential violent threats leading up to, during and after the elections. 

The NERG/RERG, he said, was made up of prominent individuals representing key state and non-state institutions to prevent and mitigate violence associated with elections. 

"This collaborative effort highlights NPC and WANEP's commitment to promoting peace, security and successful elections in Ghana by providing timely information and strategic response mechanisms," he said.

Rev. Adu-Gyamfi said the ESR, with support from RERGs (established in 11 regions, namely Upper East, Upper West, Northern, North-East, Savannah, Bono, Bono-East, Ashanti, Greater Accra, Western, and Volta), would undertake preventive actions across the country. 

The 11 regions, he said, were selected on the basis of their threat analysis conducted earlier in the year. Five hundred and ten accredited observers, including 319 observers from WANEP, have been deployed mainly to 276  prioritised "very high-risk" to "Medium-risk" constituencies across Ghana's 16 regions".

He said the observers would use a checklist comprising 63 questions, divided into six forms, to monitor voting processes within their assigned areas.

Submission 

Reports, Rev. Dr Adu-Gyamfi said, would be submitted through a Geospatial Information System (GIS) designed for that purpose and that additional updates would be received via dedicated WhatsApp channels and phone calls between the situation room and field observers. 

"134 personnel, including youth, women, elections experts, and eminent persons have been mobilised to operationalise the ESR with the support of resource persons from other West African countries, from December 6-8, this year," he said. 

In addition, he said a team of fact checkers from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJIO) and West Africa FactSpace would support the ESR in validating sensitive incidents and other social media posts before being released to the public. 

Pre-election context 

A total of 18,774,159 registered Ghanaians, comprising 9,689,980 (51.6%) females and 9,084,179 (48.4%) males, are expected to go to the polls for the ninth presidential and parliamentary elections under the Fourth Republic.

Twelve presidential candidates are contesting the 2024 elections.

In the parliamentary election, 801 aspirants, made up of 118 (14.7%) females and 683 (85.3%) males, will contest in 276 Constituencies. The elections will be held in all 40,976 polling stations across the country. 

Rev. Adu-Gyamfi said while the NPC and WANEP hotspot mapping reports identified 203 “very-high to medium-risk areas nationwide based on their specific election security indicators, the EC had reportedly identified 7,250 flashpoints nationwide.

He mentioned some of the challenges identified to include an environment of mistrust and suspicions of key state institutions by a section of the citizenry, mistrust and suspicions among political actors, negative media reportage and social media vulnerabilities, including information disorders.

Recommendations 

Rev. Adu-Gyamfi said given the challenges raised, the EC was encouraged to continue to maintain frequent communication with stakeholders and the general public throughout the electoral process. 

"The National Election Security Taskforce is encouraged to continue to uphold the principles of neutrality, impartiality and professionalism in the discharge of their duties, the National Communication Authority (NCA), the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) and the National Media Commission (NMC) should encourage their members to respect the ethics of the journalist profession and refrain from disseminating any information that could exacerbate tension, the general public should verify before sharing information on social media," he said.

The ESR is supported by the European Union and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and with complementary funding from the Governments of Sweden, Austria and the United Kingdom.