Mr Mike Igini, was in the delegation that recently assessed the preparation of Ghana ahead of its December general elections. Igini speaks on the mission according to Vanguard Newspaper
You were
said to have been selected along with Dr Oby Ezekwesilli and other prominent
individuals by the International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National
Democratic Institute (NDI), both of the United States, to carry out assessment
of Ghana ahead of its December general elections. What was the mission all
about?
Igini : Since the return to civil rule in 1992, Ghana has been showing good
example in West Africa and has crossed critical democratic thresholds that must
be consolidated for other countries in Africa to emulate. The purpose of the
mission was to support Ghana’s ability to deliver credible and peaceful
elections in 2016. The delegation’s specific goals were to: Assess the
preparation for Ghana’s December 7 presidential and legislative elections;
identify opportunities for and potential risks to the good conduct of the
electoral process, specifically in terms of pre- and post-election periods;
provide recommendations to increase the integrity and transparency of the
electoral progress; and promote dialogue among political actors and electoral stakeholders.
IRI and NDI are Washington-based institutions, non-profit, non-partisan organizations dedicated to supporting and strengthening democratic institutions and advancing freedom across the world. IRI works with civil society and religious leaders in Ghana to support peaceful elections through inter-faith dialogue and youth engagement and plans to conduct a gender assessment of women’s participation in the December elections. NDI has worked closely with Ghanaian civic and political organizations since 1992 to support the development of the country’s democratic institutions and promote transparency and integrity of the electoral process through advanced techniques in election monitoring. So the visit of the delegation is also in the context of deepening these cooperative efforts of supporting and strengthening democratic institutions and advancing freedom across the continent of Africa and the world.
IRI and NDI are Washington-based institutions, non-profit, non-partisan organizations dedicated to supporting and strengthening democratic institutions and advancing freedom across the world. IRI works with civil society and religious leaders in Ghana to support peaceful elections through inter-faith dialogue and youth engagement and plans to conduct a gender assessment of women’s participation in the December elections. NDI has worked closely with Ghanaian civic and political organizations since 1992 to support the development of the country’s democratic institutions and promote transparency and integrity of the electoral process through advanced techniques in election monitoring. So the visit of the delegation is also in the context of deepening these cooperative efforts of supporting and strengthening democratic institutions and advancing freedom across the continent of Africa and the world.
Who are the stakeholders that your delegation visited on this mission?
The delegation was a joint team and we met presidential candidates, political
party leaders, women groups, civil society groups like Western African Network
for peace-building presided over by one brilliant Nigerian Emeka Eze, media
owners and journalists, head of security, and several eminent Ghanaians, such
as Koffi Annan, a former UN Secretary General, former presidents: Jerry
Rawlings, John Koffour, and others too numerous to mention, who are key to
democratic stability and accountability in Ghana. The delegation used the
meetings to stressing the gains Ghana has recorded and that they should not be
reversed. If you are familiar with the standard measures of democracy, namely,
competition, participation and legitimacy of electoral outcomes , you will
agree that they rely on the perceptions and buy-in of the gate-keepers and
agenda setters of democratic practice in a country.
Ghana is reputed to be the
leading democracy in West Africa and many people wonder why there should be a
pre-election assessment of this nature undertaken?
No matter how mature a
democracy may be, as you can see in some countries like the United States, it
is not perfect and so there could be desperation by political actors leading to
concerns at some critical junctures, as there are in Ghana rising fears about
the forth-coming elections. In Africa, we fail to realize that election is just
a means to the goal of development and not an end in itself. We must also bear
in mind the fact that the development of democratic value is work in progress
with no hope of final completion and it feeds on eternal vigilance from
internal and external stakeholders. Apart from our delegation, there were also
the UN team led by Dr. Mohammed lbn Chambas, the A.U as well as the Ecowas
delegation for the same objective. As I told some of the stakeholders during
our meetings, Ghana, in terms of benchmarking, is one of the shining lights of
the West African region, it is like the democratic cockerel crowing to all of
us in West Africa, to remind us that it is the dawn of democratic value change
in Africa. Although this democratic cockerel is owned by Ghanaians, its crow is
for all of West Africa, Africa and the rest of the world. Therefore, the world
must help the owner of the cockerel to see to its well-being, otherwise we may
all lose its valuable crow. The IRI and NDI as lead organizations facilitated
the visit as part of that necessary vigilance to remind the Ghanaian people
that their relative democratic advancement is of a regional, continental and
global importance.
There are reports that the December elections would really
put to test the extent of institutions that have made Ghana a more mature
democracy. What is your assessment of these institutions?
Election is the only
activity that is all-involing that a nation would embark on in peace time.
Every election is a test of the commitment, vulnerability and resilience of the
democratic institutions of a country. But it should be noted that Ghana has
conducted six transfers of power through democratic elections – two of which
changed between opposing political parties in 2001 and 2009 respectively. In
that light, Ghana has proven to be a profoundly resilient bastion of democratic
practices in West African and Africa. The stakes are very high in the
forthcoming elections under dwindling revenue base, high unemployment, rising
militia groups or thugs and of course gradual loss of faith even in democracy
all pointing intense competition and possibly high participation in the
December election.
How mature are political parties’ management and the process
of selection of candidates for the elections?
Unlike our country, there was not
much noise in this regard. There is no internal party crisis and in-fighting
among party members about the choice of candidates for the election. The main
opposition party is fielding the same presidential candidate it fielded in
2012, who is contesting for the third time, while the incumbent NDC is
presenting the sitting president for second term. Given that these two
political parties have been able to ensure six peaceful transfers of power
through democratic elections, two of which changed between opposing political
parties, we can say that there is political maturity on the part of the parties
and their followers. What appears to be a stabilizing factor for Ghana democracy
is the existence and dominance of two almost equally matched political parties
in terms of spread and capacity to win election which are the NDC and the NPP
with influence over the electoral space. These parties are what the APC and the
PDP appears to be in Nigeria hopefully if they can manage themselves maturedly
for adversarial competition for power.
How do you describe the politicians in
Ghana and those of our country? One has not made a deliberate exhaustive
comparative analysis, but, on a preliminary assessment, I will have to admit
that Ghanaians are ahead of Nigeria in terms of the necessary ingredient that
democratic consolidation, namely, broad area of basic agreement or a shared
consensus on important democratic values. Ghanaian politicians are doing
relatively better in certain levels of shared democratic values, than our
politicians who are yet to agree on the pillars of consensus, how much more
reaching a common consensus, even about the entity called Nigeria except the
benefits derived by the elites.
Are campaigns in Ghana issue driven and what
are the defining issues for debate by their candidates? The groups that we
interacted with were of the view that not much of the issues that matter most
to the ordinary Ghanaians have been in focus, even though the candidates
maintained that they have been engaging on those issues. Our delegation
encouraged the stakeholders to stay with and engage on the economy, job
creation, reducing inequality and unemployment. But for the elections, key
issues of debate include the fidelity of the voter register, particularly the
Supreme Court decision that people who were registered with NHS identity cards,
most of whom allegedly are Togolese and foreigners, should be removed from the
register; and the electronic results transmission system (ERTS) for the 2016
elections, in which it is proposed that hand-held scanners should be used to
scan constituency collation forms that contain the polling station results and
sent electronically and directly to the National Collation Centre. The hard
copies would then be sent physically to the Head Office of the EC. Also there
are issues relating to the biometric verification of voters, the “No biometric
Verification, No Vote” (NVNV) rule, where there are calls for modification of
the biometric accreditation laws to make it possible for voters to cast their
ballots, if the machines fail to capture their details already accommodated by
the EC. Proponents favor the extant NVNV rule and view the 2016 provision for
manual registration as a substantial risk to the integrity of the process.
Generally, the economy, with the global downturn in commodities such as oil,
has influenced the discourse along with other domestic issues but, as the
political parties publicize their manifestoes, their positions on such issues
will become clearer. The electoral umpire is reported to be under intense
scrutiny over the register of voters and allegation of likelihood of bias of
the commission.
What are your team’s findings on these?
There were some electoral
issues that were of concern, raised mainly by members of the political class
and the opposition in particular, but when we met the chairperson of the
commission, a lawyer, we were very impressed with her thorough explanations,
regarding the concerns. She made it clear that the elections are about the
Ghanian electorate that would cast the votes and their votes counted and taken
into account in an open and transparent manner, to determine who becomes what,
that the election should never be about the umpire. She maintained that the
process is what is critical and important because, if the process is credible
and transparent, contestants would accept the outcome without fuss, and that is
what she and her team is committed to deliver come December 7. She appeared
confident, strict and very committed to the adherence of the rules that guide
the elections and wants all candidates standing for election to abide strictly
to the rules of the game. She came across as brilliant, re-assuring and
philosophical when she said that it is the will of the Ghanian people expressed
through the ballot in December that would govern and that is what the
commission is working to achieve, to build on what she met and leave behind a
heritage of democratic tradition. Our delegation was impressed and also shared
our thoughts on the need for the Electoral Commission to establish a baseline,
by disaggregating data on women’s participation including voter registration,
voter turnout, number of women candidates and analyzed according to geographic
region and age; target civic education to promote women’s participation as
voters and as poll workers; need to utilize a transparent system that will not
allow recruitment of partisan election ad-hoc staff, but one that allows for
credible, known and respected individuals from institutions and agencies to
administer elections ; and ensuring engagement with relevant stakeholders at
every stage of the electoral processes up till election day.
The fears so far
reported about the forthcoming election in Ghana are associated with
unrestrained and unprofessional role of the media. How true is this claim?
The
fears raised about the harm that the media could cause, in the build up to the
elections and after, if media regulatory bodies like Ghana Journalists
Association and National Media Communication of Ghana fail to call its members
to order, were confirmed by all stakeholders including journalists. The real
problem is not so much about the fact that there are 200 FM stations, 50
registered publishing newspapers and 50 television stations, but the fact that
most of them are established and owned by politicians who use these platforms
to unlease hate campaigns daily against opponents or any individual who holds
contrary opinion to them or those of their parties. This is the heart of the
fears being expressed about the elections, that the stage for possible violence
is gradually being prepared with generous airtime being devoted to hate
speeches and threats, even directed at judges and officials of the Electoral
Commission.
What was your delegation’s advice to the media in Ghana and our
colleagues here in Nigeria? I kept reminding the practitioners there of Dahl’s
two key attributes of the media, that they as practitioners must not abuse,
which are: Availability and observance of the right to free speech and
protection to exercise it from abuse that may lead to widespread disruption of
public life. We all must always bear in mind that liberty, as an index of
freedom, is not absence of restraints necessary to protect social order. For
democracy to flourish, and this is also a message to my friends here in
Nigeria, the media should not relapse to cognitive Cherry-picking and must
avoid the echo chamber effects, wherein certain views are played-up with the
relegation of alternatives, during electioneering campaign. We made the point
clear to the media guys that they should not undermine the progress made so far
in Ghana on the democratic front, that they owe Ghanaians the obligation to be
normatively and descriptively controlled by codes of practice as well as
journalistic ethics that include the need to ensure respect, justice,
Nonmaleficence and beneficence which, when expanded, have to do with: respect
for persons/autonomy, that is, the need to acknowledge a person’s right to make
choices, to hold views, and to take actions based on personal values and
beliefs; justice– the need to treat others equitably, ensure distribution of
benefits/burdens fairly; Nonmaleficence (do no harm)- the obligation not to
inflict harm intentionally; and beneficence (do good)- the social obligation to
provide society with benefits to persons and contribute to their general
welfare.
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