The Seventh Day Adventist Church is embarking on a spirited advocacy to amend December 7 as the election date in Ghana. The advocacy stems from the 2024 general election falling on a Saturday, their Sabbath, during which members are not to engage in any activity, apart from worshiping God.
Petitions from the church have been sent to the Office of the President, Parliament, the Electoral Commission and the Attorney General, arguing the need for the proposed amendment to be considered.
They want December 7 every four years changed to the 1st or 2nd November in every election year.
The church considers the proposed dates viable, pursuant to the work of the Constitutional Review Commission in 2011 and the Electoral Reform Committee in 2015.
The church refers to paragraph 265 on page 193 of the work of the Constitutional Review Commission, where it recommends a period for elections not later than 60 days before the installation of a new President and Parliament on January 7.
By virtue of their proposal, the SDA church is seeking to amend the non-entrenched Article 112(4) for parliamentary elections to meet the period guaranteed in Article 63(2) for presidential elections.
Article 112 (4) of the Constitution states that “a general election of members of Parliament shall be held within thirty (30) days before the expiration of the period specified in clause (1) of that Article; and a session of Parliament shall be appointed to commence within fourteen (14) days after the expiration of that period.”
The Chronicle has read the petition addressed to Jubilee House in which the church argued that the proposition from them is to help deepen electoral democracy and ensure inclusivity in the electoral process.
Whereas the church said it had a productive meeting with the Electoral Commission, The Chronicle is also informed that the Attorney General says it could only act if requested by the EC, which is independent from Executive control.
The Adventist church was looking to the Attorney General to put together a Bill to amend Article 112(4), but the latter says it is handicapped.
Ghanaians may recall that a similar attempt was made in 2016 to change December 7 to November 7, but it failed as Parliament rejected it.
The House needed at least 184 ‘YES’ votes for the two-thirds majority in support of the amendment, before it could have gone ahead to effect the date change.
After a vote in Parliament on Thursday on the Constitutional Amendment Bill 2016, 125 members voted ‘YES’ in favor of the date change, while 95 voted ‘NO’ to reject the date change.
Unofficial figures indicate that the Adventist church has about 395,000 members nearing one percent of Ghana’s population.
This figure arguably fortifies their advocacy and we opine it is worth listening to them and also looking at the merits of their case.
In the 2020 elections, the sitting president won with some 500,000 votes. This makes the number of SDA members huge and should not be overlooked, in the spirit of strengthening democracy.
However, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Sabbath, on which the church is pushing for amendment, was made for man and not the other way round.
In our candid opinion, the Adventist Church and the Electoral Commission, which will have to trigger the process for the Attorney General to continue, should not take an entrenched stance.
It is for this reason that we are calling for a broader consultation to settle the issue amicably.
At the end of the engagement, if the date is not changed, the church should encourage its members to nonetheless participate in the electoral process. On the other hand, the Electoral Commission can add the case of the church to their argument and have the date changed.
The Electoral Commission, among other reasons, decided to change the date in 2016 to allow for adequate time to organise a run-off where needed and still have time for the swearing-in.
Otherwise, the SDA church, the state and the Electoral Commission should discuss and plan how members of the church could take part in the special voting, if the date is not changed.
