Preparing for the vote

With the official launch of the manifesto of the ruling National Democratic Congress at Ho yesterday, all is set for the 2012 presidential and legislative elections. The atmosphere, though, is fouled by the creation of 45 additional seats with barely two months to the vote.

The Chronicle hopes that the addition of the new 45 seats at such an eleventh hour would not disrupt the polls. But it is very difficult to have faith in the exercise, given the stress the commission has put on itself by waiting until the very last moment.

Yesterday, the NDC left Ho under the impression that the presence of the Founder of the party had given the ruling party a shot in the arm, though there are others who argue that the speech Flt. Lt Rawlings delivered yesterday was too muted to be taken as an endorsement of the party into the elections.

On the opposite end of the political divide, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo met students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology at the Great Hall, and brought corruption into the electoral ring.

In other words, corruption would feature as one of the main pillars around which the vote would be determined. If it were so, The Chronicle would lend a helping hand by examining the protagonists and their determination to minimise corruption.

We hope that somehow the Electoral Commission would be able to pull this one off. We dare state that the preparation has never been the very best. With barely two months to the polls, there is no provisional register of voters for aspiring Members of Parliament and their political parties to work with. Certainly, it is not the best means of preparing for that serious exercise.

This should put the Electoral Commission on notice to back up. The last we heard, the comission is not even sure of the kind of Constitutional Instrument that has just been passed by Parliament. The Chronicle views this development with grave concern.  Our worry is that it sends the signal out there that the commission, which is supposed to conduct the polls, may not be ready. But, this is one of the most important decisions to be taken by the people of this country since independence was declared from colonial rule in 1957.

As a society, we do not believe that we have done terribly well with our governance process, given the many contradictions in society. The authorities would tell you that Ghana has been transformed beyond any entity this society had ever known. On the other side of the political divide, the notion is that the country had been ran aground by a group of people who have only succeed in allocating state resources for their personal use.

The vote is to decide which of the two sides of the same coin the people of Ghana most identify with. The stakes are high. Let the Electoral Commission be responsive to its responsibilities.

It is a fact of life that we all cherish peace. That is why things should be done in the open to achieve a result acceptable to all.

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