Sunday, December 28, 2008

ghana elections

pal,

Pal, thanks to the run-off, i've for the first time in my life done my second voting ever! nice one!

I don't for the life of me trust the Ghana Electoral system enough! I just don't! no matter how it churns out president's so far for Ghana! the word is trust!!!

and i will tell you why!
I know the electoral system as a whole is ok but i don't trust it.

1. We can't trust results from most parts of the Volta Region and we can't trust results from most parts of the Ashanti Region which both happens to be strongholds of the two major parties, ndc and npp respectively!

2. I don't see why the EC allows voting by proxy! that can't be trusted enough!

3. Up till now the EC agents are using 'makola' calculators but not at least pentium 1 laptops!

4. A number of party polling agents and the EC officials do not understand the very rules set for the elections by the EC.

these and other funny ways of transporting ballot papers and the collation of results makes it difficult for me to really trust the electoral system!

Solutions:
1. nullify the proxy system until we can make good sense out of it. just like ropal...don't let that thing come till we are making sense enough!

2. improve on monitoring in the Volta and Ashanti regions!

3. EC must start procuring and training officials to use computers for collations!

4. The parties and the EC must train and train and retrain their agents on the rules!

5. The system of prostesting against a suspected 'illegal' voter is not cool koraaaaaa! one has to only fill a form. that's all. meanwhile the results would be declared and then you have to look at the courts if the EC does not respond satisfactorily!

okay man!
i know elections is just ongoing...and i know the EC man Afari Djan has on several occassions assured Ghanaians...but maybe it's just that i don't see what Afari sees! but i'm stating that of all the elections conducted in the country so far, i can't trust the results enough! that includes 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and let me just include 2008 becuase it is on going!

this view of mine would still be held by me no matter who wins the 2008 polls. I'm compelled to do this before any other time because of the fact that a friend of mine who has his photo ID but did not have his name on the list (because even though he registered properly he did not take the photo ID before the compilation of the list) nearly got disenfranchised because one polling agent of the NDC was not ready to allow him to vote! this chap clearly does not understand the electoral rules. first he does not want to accept that he's not supposed to prevent anyone from voting...for which i pity him cos after all the system of protest is funny!

pal, before you refuse to think that i'm trying to be objective, note that this pal of mine was actually voting for change...as in he was actually going to vote to benefit the ndc polling agent anyway but of course how is that told on the face!!! but hey by the rules such disclosures at the polling station is not allowed therefore it did not even come up in our protest! We were four paddies who went there in all jamboree...two for Akuffo Addo and two for Atta Mills! a nice blend....

thankfully, we managed to explain to the EC officials and everybody that we had confirmation from the EC that my friend was qualified to vote! can you imagine that voters were the ones teaching the EC officials their own rules??? that is the sad state of our electoral system!

but i also don't think it's all gloomy! so yes we have an ok system but definitely not one i can trust enough!!!

happy new year to you pal if i don't get back here in all jubilation amidst the wind of change b4 the coming of 2009!

cheers!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks alot for the great post
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