The Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Godfred Yeboah Dame, has strongly defended the credibility of Ghana's Electoral Commission (EC) and urged the public to resist attempts by detractors to undermine the electoral process.
Speaking at the 2024/2025 Annual General Conference of the Ghana Bar Association in Kumasi on Monday, September 9, 2024, Dame emphasised that Ghana's democratic system and electoral processes have remained transparent and reliable since the inception of the 1992 Constitution.
He commended the EC's efforts over the years, emphasising that while Ghana has made significant progress in consolidating democracy, the integrity of the electoral process must not be taken for granted.
Dame called on Ghanaians to reject any rhetoric that promotes conflict and instead focus on protecting the nation's peace and democratic values as the country prepares for the 2024 general elections. "The credibility of Ghana's democracy and the conduct of elections in this country can clearly not be denied by any objective onlooker.
We must resist the vain effort of naysayers who constantly sow seeds of doubt on the credibility of our elections.
The Electoral Commission has had a sound appreciation of the circuit constitutional responsibility it bears to the people since 1992. "Remarkably, it remained unshaken in its quest even in the heat of COVID-19 and rose to the occasion in 2020 in delivering an internationally affirmed free, fair and perhaps the most transparent elections since the inception of the constitution in 1992.
It best emphasises that an election is a process, among other things, it includes the demarcation of boundaries, registration of eligible voters, the creation of voters register, printing of ballot papers, distribution of ballot papers to various voting centres, supervision of voting, the casting of votes, counting and progress, processing of the votes, the declaration of the winner or winners. "So, far I have not noticed anything about the Electoral Commission's handling of the process.
Even though Ghana has come far, in consolidating democracy as her way of life, we can consider free and fairness in this country as a matter of course and we cannot take that process for granted," he stated.
He continued: "For this reason, we continue to talk about these things as a way of entrenching the undoubted values we hold dear and warding off potential wreckers of the peace of the nation.
We must steadfastly resist the dishonourable deeds of those who without course, sow seeds of doubt in the ability of the electoral commission to organise a credible election.
We must [deploy jettison], without any reservation, reject rhetoric which fans the flames of conflict."