21 November 2008
opinion
Ghana News Agency (GNA) has reported in a story filed yesterday that Mr. Jerry John Rawlings of the NDC has urged Ghanaians to prove to the world that they are capable of changing governments through peaceful polls.
It is a surprising call because Ghanaians, since independence have taken their elections serious and always held peaceful elections, except where military adventurers like him have changed governments by resorting to the force of arms like he and others did to the constitutionally elected government of the late President Hila Limann on December 31 1981.
Though Election '92 was hotly disputed by the then opposition parties in Ghana leading to a parliamentary boycott for four years, the opposition parties never resorted to violence and the NDC/NCP/EGLE government led by Mr. Rawlings had an undisturbed four years to conduct its business.
The GNA report said Mr. Rawlings told Ghanaians that, "The repetition of what you did in 2000 will prove to the world that our nation is really a beacon of democracy in Africa." In 2004, the people of Ghana returned a party to power without recourse to violence and proved to the world that Ghana had become a beacon of democracy.
Actually, until Mr. Rawlings introduced the bogey of rigging into the electoral process, there was no talk of electoral violence in Ghana. Mr. Rawlings has been trumpeting that his party did not lose the last elections, but due to the party's lack of "vigilance", the NPP rigged it. With that mindset, he started calling for "resistance", which over time translated itself into the anxiety that has been gripping the country as the election approaches.
Said the GNA report: "Former President Rawlings said in 2000 the people called for a change of government and they effected it peacefully without any hindrance from the then administration." The implication being that the current administration is putting hindrances in the way of the electorate, but there is no evidence to back such a suggestion.
The Electoral Commission, which Rawlings appointed in 1992, and is still manned by the personnel his government handpicked, has given the assurance that the current government has satisfied its requirements and the systems it has put in place would not make rigging possible.
In fact, no political party has faced any impediments in its campaign towards the elections as they all traipse around the country spreading their messages - including Rawlings himself!
Still hankering for some casus belli, this is what the GNA report said he told Ghanaians: "'After comparing two administrations, the people again are yearning for a change', he said and advised them to effect it peacefully as they did in 2000 and expressed the hope that the government of the day and its agents would not put any impediment in the way of the electorate."
Mr. Rawlings has not provided any evidence whatsoever to show that the government of the day and its agents (and who are the agents by the way?) have put in place or have been caught executing a systematic programme of impediments in the way of the electorate.
It is this kind of sweeping general accusation that has introduced the fear and loathing to the electoral process.
If Mr. Rawlings had not usurped the role of presidential candidate John Evans Atta Mills and running mate John Dramani Mahama in the NDC's campaign programme, the heat being generated in Ghana's political atmosphere in this election year would have been considerably lower. As it is, it is Rawlings' agenda that has now taken centre stage and what that would lead to, is still everyone's uncertainty...
In an equally dangerous and cynical allusion to one of Ghana's most unstable areas, Dr Spio-Gabrah was also reported in the GNA report to have said it is not correct to say there is rule of law under the NPP administration because the government had failed to prosecute those who killed the Ya Na Yakubu Andani and 40 others, Alhaji Mobila and perpetrators of the recent killings and burning of houses, vehicles and stores at Gushiegu.
He conveniently left out the question of who caused the firing at Dr. Bawumiah's campaign convoy, whose attitude led to the Dagomba/Kokomba war during the NDC administration, in which many more people died and much more property destroyed.
Who slaughtered NPP supporters at Kumbungu in the Northern Region after Election '04, the findings of the Wuako Commission into the Yendi Crisis, the prosecution of suspects that could not stand up in court and the failure of NDC supporters who had accused General Hamidu and others of complicity to prove their case in court? In fact, they ended up with huge fines for libel which in a show of magnanimity, General Hamidu and the others did not even press for the fines to be paid.
It is most callous for the touchy Yendi crisis to be dragged into an already highly charged political campaign atmosphere and coming at this time, only two weeks to election, can have only one intention: inflammation of passions.
Rawlings' call for peaceful elections is welcome, but it is the dagger in his words that hold the key...
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