With all the tension rising up
the walls of the Ghanaian Supreme Court regarding unfavourable decisions with
The Electoral Committee and with the elections just around the corner, it’s
only right that I share a post.
Firstly, let’s get the boring
part out of the way ... How does the elections work in Ghana?
It is quite simple, this December
the President will be elected using the ''Two -Round system”, whilst the 275
members of Parliament will be elected in single member constituency using first
past the post voting. On the 24th of July 2012 the previous president John Atta
Mills from the National Democratic Congress Party sadly passed away and our
current President John Dramani Mahama took office until he was formally elected
in 2012. The two most predominant parties: The New Patriotic Party and the
National Democratic Congress Party. Like most democratic nations, the voting
age in Ghana is 18.
The Ghanaian general election
will be held on the 7th of December 2016. Which party and which leader will
lead the nation into 2017 is the burning question on almost everyone’s mind. Many of you reading are probably expecting a
prediction of the elections results to soon follow in the next paragraph or so. Nevertheless, I think election outcomes in
West Africa are quite unpredictable, you never really know what to expect based
on reasons such as corruption which I will further elaborate in the next couple
of paragraphs. I asked Samuel Agyaba Afriyie; a business student
from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology what his views were
on the upcoming elections. Samuel expressed that it is likely for Mahama to be
elected into office once again because of the great support he has in the
Northern and Eastern regions of Ghana , he said “their votes plays an important
part”. This was rather interesting to me because most reforms and policies only
affect these regions to a certain extent and unfavourable decisions tend to be
more detrimental on these two regions. However, Samuel went on to explain that it
is more or less a bit like tribalism this is because Mahama, is from the Northern
region. Esther Tinker on the other hand, a politics student at the London
School of Economics, believes that Ghana is ready for a completely new government
and we may just get that this year.
In June 2016 NPP's deputy chief
scribe Nana Obiri Boahen made a controversial statement that colonial rule is
better for Ghana than Mahama's"mediocre leadership'' I weep for Ghana . If
that kind of mediocre leadership can’t be stopped then I prefer colonial rule”.
This was quite alarming to me, and although his statement could be argued as
highly biased it is what led to me to witting this article. A number of
political researchers have said that voter turnout will be much greater than it
has ever been in history. Why this may be has many fundamental reasons such as
the fact that in 2014 Electricity tariffs went up 80%. Water tariff went up
60%. VAT went up 20%. Petrol price went up by over 50%. Dumsor is still an
ongoing issue that frustrates over half the population. Therefore, this year
Ghanaians will vote carefully, looking at manifestos and proposed policies that
they will most definitely benefit from.
A recent survey by the Centre for Democratic Development
(CDD) Ghana, revealed that 46 percent of Ghanaians sampled across the across
the country believed the EC will likely announce wrong vote tallies or switch
election results. “63 percent deem the prospect of their votes not being
counted unlikely, but nearly a third remain sceptical, while a large minority
(46%), believe it is very and somewhat likely that the wrong vote tally would be
announced,” the CDD survey revealed. - See more at: http://citifmonline.com/2016/08/26/election-2016-will-be-benchmark-for-africa-ec-declares/#sthash.tRq9TfuG.dpuf.
So it seems like there isn’t even confidence
in the electoral system this year which is very worrying. Nelson Mandela once said "We need the
commitment of leaders at all levels in order to achieve the better life all
that we promised our people’’. We can only hope and pray that everything goes adequately.
