The conduct of election has always played a salient role in nations collective political aspirations and prosperity. Election confers legitimacy on public office holders and regimes, and it is considered today, as the most widely accepted source of legitimacy to rule. So, in any political system including Ghana, the conduct of free, fair and peaceful electoral process is always an important necessity.
Since 1992 the quest for a just, free, fair, and peaceful elections has remained dominant in the electoral aspirations of Ghanaians. As a result, dialogue on electoral processes before, during and after elections has arguably included a concern for actors like the political parties, electoral commission, security services, the youth etc whose activities consciously or unconsciously instigate fear and panic leading to violence. At the center of this dialogue process within the last decades, has been the phenomenon of lack of confidence and respect for the electoral commissioner, the police service, the military, including issues on vote buying, political vigilantism who seem to owe their loyalty to political parties and engage in organized efforts outside legitimate channels to ensure a change, or retention of a status quo that is purely political in nature.
We must understand that election is the procedure for selecting leaders or making choices between alternative policies or issues that have been recognized by our sovereign nation and states within the sub region and beyond by which elective public officers are filled and specific policy issues are decided. Like other jurisdictions in the sub region, Ghana as an exemplary model of democracy, good governance, rule of law, human rights and freedom, has also come to accept the conduct election as the chief institutional mechanism by which the elective public officeholders of our democratic dispensation are selected.
It is no longer news that come Saturday, December 7, 2024, Ghanaians will be going to the polls to elect legislators and the chief executive of the state. The perpetrators of political or electoral violence are not necessarily the youth but the politicians as well. The youth are the flag bearers of electoral violence as a result of the greed of political activists whose main quest is the retention or winning of power at all cost. Political activists capitalize on the intellectual and economic gullibility and youthful exuberance of the Ghanaian electorate to engage them in violence just to satisfy their inordinate ambitions.
With the elections around the corner, I admonish the institution of the Electoral Commission (EC) to act as an impartial umpire in order to assuage the public scepticism surrounding the integrity of the Office of the EC.
The media both print and electronic must exhibit extreme level of professionalism and impartiality in their coverage and reportage of electoral issues.
It is also expected of the security agencies like the police and the military to act jobwise and expertly to preserve the peace and security of the country and not use a section of the electorate for target practice as they did in election 2020 when eight (8) people were gunned down in broad day light without accounting for their misdeeds and crimes against the humanity of the families of the victims and the state.
In addition, I call on the youth to take it upon themselves to cultivate and edify each other about election as a civil responsibility and not violence. Collectively, as a beacon of democracy, if we do not take into account to enlighten ourselves about the need to embrace pacifism, appreciate the spirit of togetherness and peaceful coexistence we have been enjoying from time immemorial, we may have ourselves to blame. The Holy Qur`an states:
“..Allah does not change the conditions of a people until they change their own conditions..” Quran 13:11
Without a slight of doubt, many groups and individuals have called for a just, peaceful, transparent, free and fair elections, and from the accounts and expertise of individuals and institutions including academicians, policy makers, civil society organizations and international institutions we can better understand the conduct of elections, causes of electoral violence, approaches to controlling electoral violence and techniques to consolidate the spirit of togetherness bequeathed unto us by our ancestors.
There is always a time in the life of the individual when his/her faith is likely to be tested repeatedly by temptations “of the flesh”. We must collectively strive within the framework of our capacity to overcome these temptations, and we can do that if we try to preserve and observe the norms and values that have held us together. Ghana has done it before and we can obviously do it again if we promise ourselves and the world that the December 7th presidential and parliamentary elections must be just, peaceful, transparent, free and fair.
May the Almighty Allah make it possible for us to witness a just, peaceful, transparent, free and fair elections.
Office of National Imam of the Shia Muslim Community, Ghana
