45 seats of confusion
Truth, as a concept, is in short supply in this country. As Hannah Arendt, an American political commentator wrote some time in history, no one, as far as we know, “has ever counted truth among political virtues. Seen from the view-point of politics, truth has a despotic character. It is, therefore, hated by tyrants and enjoys a rather precarious relationship with governments that rest on consent and abhor coercion.”
Ever since the entire governance process of this country was converted into a political party in 1992, with the elite of society applauding this naked fraud, truth took flight. The Chronicle reckons that truth is still in exile. That could be the only justification for the creation of 45 new constituencies, barely two months to elections.
We are not doomsday soothsayers, but The Chronicle envisages confusion making its master-piece on election day, with wrong pictures and messy captions on the ballot papers. Our prediction is premised on the messy vote conducted by the Electoral Commission, in respect of the 2010 District Assembly vote.
In Ghana, no one wants to offend the other. That is why a vote meant to cover a single day travelled over two months, in two different years, without anybody raising a finger. The Chronicle is absolutely convinced that if the same confusion is visited on the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections, calm is certainly not likely to greet the vote.
The Chronicle is irked by the call for peace to grace the vote, when all around us peace is being undermined. When clearly, the creation of 45 additional seats has the potential of undermining the vote, all Ghanaians have a right to reject the new creations.
Nobody should delude him/herself to believe that because a certain group of people happen to be parliamentarians, or in leadership positions politically, they have the interest of Ghana at heart more than others. There are a number of instances when the right of the commission has been misapplied.
The registration of so many political parties, some of which have no visible head offices anywhere, let alone, construct offices in two-thirds of the nearly 200 districts, as the law requires, is one reference point about the Electoral Commission failing to regulate the electoral process properly.
One other improper use of the mandate of the commission, certainly, is the creation of an additional 45 seats two months to the general elections.
The Electoral Commission is not a kind of sacrosanct institution. The Commission is populated by men and women who have their own interests. As a people, we have a duty to ensure that the commission does not promote the interests of a few people and confuse them with national interests.
The additional 45 seats, created two months to the elections, looks like coming to haunt the political emancipation of this nation at a time we have not planned for that confusion.
The EC and its officials have time enough to re-think the application of the error-prone C.I. 78, which was rail-rolled in by a group of people who have behaved throughout the process, as if their very political lives depend on smuggling in the additional 45 seats.
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