EC Needs Evidence Before Any Judgement On Electoral Disputes
Monday February 08, 2010
By Lawrence Markwei
DR Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, Chairman of Electoral Commission (EC) has emphasised that the EC will need evidence to be able to pronounce judgment on any electoral dispute.
“The rules of the game is evidence and will always be evidence,” he said.
Dr Afari-Gyan said this when he took his turn to answer a barrage of questions from faculty and alumni of the University of Ghana who filled the Great Hall of the University to capacity last Thursday after he had delivered a lecture on the topic “Election and Democracy” which was organised by the University Alumni Association.
He said evidence is needed to delve into electoral disputes because the EC has the capacity to reconstruct election results from the polling stations to the constituency, regional and national levels.
Dr Afari-Gyan said the electoral process gives room for election results to be collated from all levels to ascertain whether there is any shortcoming from the results declared.
He said it is confusing when parties or individuals approach the EC with mere suspicion of being cheated without collaborating their allegations with evidence.
Dr Afari-Gyan said such unsubstantiated allegations tend to fuel tension in the political landscape saying “people should provide us with the evidence we need to work with instead of coming to us to say thing like my agents were not allowed to supervise the election or I have to withdraw them for fear of their lives.”
Responding to the question as to whether electronic voting (e-voting) will be possible in the near future, Dr Afari-Gyan said “until my grandmother learns how to use the computer, there will be no e-voting in Ghana.”
Explaining further, he said the reference to the grandmother was only an indication that the older generation are not as yet conversant with the use of the computer to warrant such as move.
Dr Afari-Gyan said Ghana needs to build in-roads into computer usage by all sections of the society before such and electoral process could be introduced saying “advanced countries like Great Britain, Canada, Australia and a host of them are not using e-voting because of its complications so I wonder why Nigeria and Kenya are so bent on its usage.”
He said the EC is rather considering an option of electronic-registration (e-registration) which will allow the bio-data of every voter to be captured on the computer.
Dr Afari-Gyan said no citizen of Ghana should be disenfranchised based on anything so far as he or she is qualified to vote.
He was then responding to a question whether as a voter, he will not be biased towards the party he voted for should an electoral dispute ensued. The questioneer wanted to know whether it would not be better for top officials of EC and the judiciary to excuse themselves from voting.
Dr Afari-Gyan, however said such a decision will be untenable since it will lead to the disenfranchisement of people “but I can assure you that we carry out our duties with fairness and honesty”.
Prof Tagoe, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana and chairman of the occasion commended the organisers and participants and described Dr Afari-Gyan as a “thick-skinned’ personality who has been able to endure and address all concerns raised by the participants.
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