This week, a High Court in Tamale invalidated the results of the 2024 parliamentary election in the Kpandai Constituency.
The ruling was in response to a petition filed by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) parliamentary candidate who alleged various electoral infractions in 41 polling stations.
This called into question the integrity of the election outcome.
The court upheld the petition, ordering a re-run of the entire election in 30 days.
I must note a few things. First, the full decision of the court is not yet available, as that will provide further insights into why the court’s remedy is a re-run of the election in the entire constituency.
Second, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate, who was declared the winner of that election and now serves as the Member of Parliament for the constituency, has served notice that the decision will be appealed. He has also filed a stay of execution to prevent the court’s order of a re-run election in 30 days until all appeals are heard and outcomes are determined.
The case is,therefore, far from a final resolution. Nonetheless, here are three key issues for reflection. I begin by addressing the broad context of why electoral integrity matters.
Electoral Integrity
Ghanaians (85 per cent), over nine rounds, strongly support using elections to choose our leaders (Afrobarometer survey).
Yet, between Round 7 (2017) and Round 10 (2024), the percentage of Ghanaians who rate elections as “completely free and fair” has dropped significantly from 66 per cent to 33 per cent.
And to further complicate matters, the percentage who say they trust the election management body (Electoral Commission) “a lot” has dropped from 48 per cent (Afrobarometer Round 3, 2005) to 12 per cent (Afrobarometer Round 10, 2024).
In such an environment – strong support for election but questions about electoral integrity (fairness and trust) - it is very important to resolve these matters with one goal in mind: ensuring that Ghanaians do not lose faith and confidence in a democratic exercise they strongly support.
If the results of the Kpandai parliamentary election raised issues of electoral integrity, the aggrieved candidate must be commended for going to the High Court to seek redress.
And the candidate who was declared the winner and currently serves as the MP must also be commended for seeking further redress at the appeals court, as he disagrees with the ruling of the high court. Again, these steps can only help to improve electoral integrity and strengthen our democracy.
But beyond electoral integrity, the court’s ruling, even as we wait for the appeals process to be completed, offers us an opportunity to reflect on three things.
Reflections
First, and with all due respect, the high court’s ruling and proposed remedy to the electoral issues raised by the petitioner are concerning and a departure from the limited remedy approach we have seen over the years. Two cases come to mind.
In the 2008 Akwaita dispute involving Baba Jamala and Dr Kofi Asare, a re-run was ordered in the six polling stations (Supreme Court ruling) where issues of electoral integrity were established.
The second involves the Electoral Commission’s administrative decision to re-run elections in 19 polling stations to establish the winner of the 2024 parliamentary election in Ablekuma North.
If the dispute involves 41 polling stations, I am curious why the remedy is to invalidate the results of the entire constituency?
In my opinion, the remedy must be limited to where electoral integrity issues have been identified.
Second, is the growing partisan response to judicial rulings. Citizens are free to disagree with the courts and can raise questions to seek clarification of rulings.
However, our partisan politics has reached a stage where court rulings are met with raising questions about the integrity of the Judiciary, sometimes using very scathing rhetoric.
Does it come as a surprise, then, that citizens have low levels of trust in key institutions like the court, or that they have higher levels of trust when the party they prefer is in power? (See Afrobarometer survey results).
We cannot continue this pattern if we want to build strong institutions that citizens can trust.
Third, our political parties must accept some responsibility for the disturbances that make it difficult to collate election results peacefully and incident-free.
I understand that the lack of trust in the Electoral Commission forces them to adopt extrajudicial measures in the name of protecting the ballot.
However, these activities are becoming disruptive to the electoral process, as witnessed in 2024 at some constituency collation centres, forcing the EC to administratively step in, which further created partisan acrimony.
Whatever becomes of this case, electoral integrity should be an overriding concern.
We must also try to hold our partisan impulses in check and work together to strengthen our electoral systems and practices.
The writer is the Project Director, Democracy Project
