Towards peaceful election this year...Parties and media urged to live above reproach
Political parties and media practitioners have been challenged to perform their activities in a responsible manner for a peaceful election this year.
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According to the Director of Newspapers of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, “we all have a responsibility in the sense that when we monitor ourselves, and begin to do the things that we are supposed to do, everyone of us performs responsibilities in a reasonable manner. I think it is easy for all of us to enjoy the peace.”
Speaking during a radio interview on Bolgatanga’s A1 Radio as part of a town hall meeting organised by GCGL in the Upper East Region, Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh, argued that everyone had a key role to play to ensure peace.
“One rash action can cause problems for everyone of us and that is why nobody can say that this matter doesn’t concern me,” he said.
Town Hall meetings
The town hall meetings being organised by GCGL is to offer political parties the opportunity to interact with the electorate, pledge peace and put their messages across on how prepared they are for the elections.
When the host of the A1 programme - Day Break Upper East Show- Mr Emmanuel Aboagye, asked the rationale for the meeting, Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh responded: “You know, as our elders have said, if a prophet predicts doom, he is part of the holocaust that might come. We are part of the system and we know that elections are critical periods and since peace is very critical for the media, we say that we have a responsibility. Therefore since 2012, we have taken upon ourselves a certain obligation to visit at least some regions, bring the political parties together and let them tell the public how they are going to commit themselves to maintain the peace.”
“Our commitment is to provide a platform that will allow the political parties to state their preparedness and their commitment and that includes the use of language, because it is not just the absence of war but also lack of cooperation among people,” he said.
All presentations of the political parties from the town hall meetings are to be published so that the public can monitor and point out some of the issues.
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“When people come out openly to make a commitment, there is a willingness to go through that and that public acknowledgement in itself is a commitment to peace,” he said.
Promises
Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh also mentioned that it was vital that all stakeholders in the 2016 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections commit to a peaceful poll in December and noted that the meeting also provided residents the opportunity to ask questions of representatives of the political parties on their policies for the region.
This, he said, would direct the electorate on who they should choose when they went to the polls.
He said the GCGL as part of measures to fulfil its constitutional mandate to provide equal access to all political parties and presidential candidates met with nine political parties in July in Accra and briefed them about the platform.
Tracking promises
He indicated that “we are going to track promises made, those that are doable and those that are not and that we are keeping a compendium of promises.
“From now on, we are going to monitor to see how many of the promises have been fulfilled. For instance, for the President, people are talking about the 200 schools that he promised even though he says 123 are under different stages of construction, we know the number of them which have been formally inaugurated. So if they say that they have built, well we know whether they have or not. At least, it gives us a certain level of objective indicator of assessing our government where in the past we didn’t do and admire the media in other jurisdictions.”
EC operations
With regards to the role of the EC and how the media was engaging with it, Mr Boadu-Ayeboafoh wondered why some political parties still existed in the books of the Electoral Commission (EC).
“Some parties such as Egle Party and Dr Wereko Brobby’s party is still in the books…. when the people themselves who formed the party have said that they have gone on leave, they have gone on vacation.”
He said some of the political parties were sometimes overly agitated because of mistrust and in other instances, the Electoral Commission appeared reticent, especially after the election petition when a number of issues came up.
“Recruitment of personnel and all that, I mean under the law, they should have advertised and pasted the names for people to see,” he said.
Mr Kobby Asmah, the Political Editor of Daily Graphic for his part said beyond informing and educating the masses on political issues, Graphic had key interest to provide an even platform for the greater political parties and therefore doing it with the hope that a lot of political parties would make themselves available and use the platform to sell their messages.
Town hall hits Sunyani
A similar town hall meeting will be held in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region tomorrow August 31 at the Tyco City Hotel, Abusua hall. Others will be held in Koforidua in the Eastern Region on September 7, 2016 and Cape Coast in the Central Region on September 14, 2016.
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The theme for the town hall engagements is: “Good governance, key to growth and development in Ghana.”