The Electoral Commission of Ghana (EC) has reaffirmed its commitment to running a free, fair and credible elections ahead of the December 7, Presidential and parliamentary polls by embracing transparency, responsiveness, and inclusiveness.
The EC’s commitment to transparency and inclusiveness is crucial in ensuring the credibility and legitimacy of the electoral process, especially at a time where the stakes are very high for the two leading political parties, thus, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Addressing political party and Independent candifates, at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel in Accra, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Madam Jean Mensa, stated that the commission has embraced transparency, responsiveness and inclusiveness.
According to her, the Commission has made conscious efforts in making sure that no political party nor stakeholder is left in the dark.
“We have embraced three (3) essential ingredients which in our view contribute to peaceful electoral processes and elections — namely transparency, responsiveness, and inclusiveness,” Madam Jean Mensa said.
“We have applied these elements in our activities,” she added.
The EC posited that right from the start of the electoral calendar until now, the commission has imbibed the three main ingredients they deem essential to enable an incident-free election.
Madam Jean Mensa highlighted some activties undertaken by the Commission for which the three major ingredients came to play.
She said, “Registration of Voters - Before the commencement of the voter registration exercise, we provided comprehensive information about the exercise to all our stakeholders, through radio and TV adverts in English and Ten (10) major dialects. The adverts were aired on major TV and Radio stations across the country. This inclusive approach ensured that 97% of persons eligible to register at this time turned out for the exercise.
“We also ensured that our centres were easily accessible to our stakeholders. This saw a high percent of persons with disabilities (PWDs) availing themselves for the exercise.
"In the spirit of transparency and accountability, we provided political party agents with start of day and end of day reports. This allowed them to account for the number of persons registered across the country on any given day. Additionally, we provided regular infographics on detailed registration data to the citizenry. This made it possible for interested citizens to know with near precision the number of persons registered in the country on any given day; drilling down to male/female voters, PWDs, first time voters, among others.”
Speaking further, Madam Jean Mensa stated that throughout the entire process, the commission held several press conferences and used available platforms to address the concerns of the citizens.
“This level of transparency and openness helped eliminate suspicions that usually characterize the registration exercise. We applied the same ingredients of transparency, responsiveness, and inclusiveness in our Exhibition Exercise. In addition to the physical exhibition of the PVV in the 40 Thousand + polling stations, we added a second layer of verification by exhibiting the PVR online at a fee of 50 pesewas per verification.
"In the spirit of responsiveness, when the citizens raised concerns about the fees, we waived the 50 pesewas initially charged and made it possible for citizens to check their details at no cost. This arrangement also reduced the burdens of citizens and enabled to verify their details in the comfort of their homes. The online verification facility is still in place and voters can continue to verify their details free of all charges till Election Day.”
"We also promptly addressed concerns raised on the PVR directly with the political parties that raised concerns and went on to call an IPAC meeting to discuss the concerns with the PVR when our direct engagement with the parties could not yield the desired results. In the spirit of transparency and inclusiveness we opened the IPAC meeting to the public to enable them to follow the discussions on the PVR.
The presentation from our IT team and the ensuing discussions helped to lower the tensions and suspicions around the register and restored its credibility.
"By discussing all the concerns in an open and transparent manner and carrying the citizens along as a result of the live coverage of proceedings, tensions and suspicions around the PVR were eliminated and the peace of our country was restored.”
The Commission added that the same elements of transparency, responsiveness, and inclusiveness was applied in the nomination and balloting processes, which was opened to the public.
The EC Chair maintained that opening up these processes to the Ghanaian citizenry has helped to eliminate the stories of the EC fixing the ballot.
“Citizens are now well informed as to how the ballot positions are determine. They are now aware that it is the political parties themselves which the order in which they will appear on the ballot paper and not the EC.
"The story is no different in the case of printing of ballots and results declaration. For the first time in our history we took the media on a tour to the printing houses as part of our efforts to keep the e citizenry well informed. This approach brought to the fore the level of involvement of the political parties in the printing process and demonstrated the accountability and transparency mechanisms built into our printing cycle. Through our media partners, citizens gained knowledge about the ballot statistics and serial numbers given to the political parties.”
"This openness and transparency provided insights into the printing, serialisation, sorting, auditing, bagging and transportation of ballots. We are confident that the citizens are now aware that the Commission cannot print additional ballots for the benefit of any political party. For the simple reason that parties have the serial numbers of each ballot which will enable them detect fake ballots, etc. Again it is now common knowledge that the ballot statistics provided to political parties’ agents enables them to determine and confirm the actual number of ballot papers each polling station is provided.”
Reiterating her assertion, Jean Mensah said that the same virtues adopted by the commission was applied in the course of printing of the Presidential and Parliamentary elections where the EC’s audit team detected issues with the serialisation of ballot papers for Volta and Ahafo regions and promptly informed the political parties, involving them in the destruction of the affected ballot papers.
“With the help of our media partners we captured the entire processes of loading to the destruction of faulty ballots by burning was brought to the doorsteps of citizens. The destruction certificates signed by all the party and security agents and the Commission’s staff were made public for all to see,” she added.
