Training programme for election management bodies underway in Accra
A five-day training course for election management bodies aimed at strengthening and equipping them with essential principles in election management opened at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD) at the University of Ghana in Accra yesterday.
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The workshop is collaboration between LECIAD and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), with support from the European Union (EU).
Participants were drawn from election management bodies in Ghana, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Gambia, Guinea, Mali and Niger.
The rest were from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Togo and Uganda.
In a keynote address, the Co-Chair of the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers (CODEO), Professor Miranda Greenstreet, said even though elections were the cornerstone of every democracy, there were essential principles that had to be fulfilled.
Prof. Greenstreet said free, fair, equal, safe and consistent elections which took place in
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She said countries in the sub-region had attracted global attention for flawed elections and that images of stuffed ballot boxes, snatched ballot boxes and predetermined election results that completely disregarded the mandate of the people characterised elections within the sub-region.
Prof. Greenstreet noted that those challenges were eroding the credibility of the democratic process as more African countries strived to hold credible elections, the results of which reasonably reflected the will of the people.
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In addition to strengthening democratic foundations, Prof. Greenstreet said a credible election was also a sine qua non for peace and stability and that within the sub-region and the wider continent, many conflicts had been precipitated by disputed election results. Consequently, within the last two decades, the sub-regional organisation had focused much of its efforts on mediating and resolving conflicts. She cited Ghana’s 2012 election petition case and how close the country came to the brink of an electoral conflict.
Prof Greenstreet tasked the participants to take advantage of the programme to ensure that elections were credible to enhance democracy in the sub-region.
Proper training
A representative of the ECOWAS Electoral Unit, Mr Eysenck Okurodudu, for his part, said it was to avoid disputes and violence, and their consequent hardships on the people that ECOWAS was collaborating with a number of organisations to ensure that elections were well managed in the sub-region.
The Director of LECIAD, Prof. Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu, who chaired the function, noted that while considerable efforts had been made to train personnel for election observation and monitoring, relatively less effort had been channelled into skills-enhancement for those who managed elections in the field.