A Fellow of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Professor Kwaku Asare, has added his voice to the advice being given to the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission not to introduce policies that would prove inimical to the country’s democracy.
According to the Professor of Accounting, who is also known as Kwaku Azar, it is not advisable for policies that have far reaching implications to be implemented without first being piloted.
He said this in reaction to the announcement of the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs Jean Mensa, that her outfit has decided to discontinue the use of indelible ink in elections they conduct. Mrs. Mensa said with the introduction of biometric machines, the indelible ink is no longer needed.
Indelible ink is a semi-permanent ink or dye that is applied to the forefinger (usually) of voters during elections in order to prevent electoral fraud such as double voting.
She explained at a media briefing on Monday, December 18 that the biometric identification system flags anyone who attempts multiple voting; hence, anyone verified after voting cannot vote again.
However, speaking on Ghana Tonight with Alfred Ocansey on January 8, Prof. Asare said the EC’s Chairperson must hasten slowly.
“I am one of those people who don’t believe that big changes should be implemented all of a sudden. If you believe you have a technology that makes the use of indelible ink obsolete, fine. Do it on pilot basis. Take a few polling stations and test to see whether indeed, it works so that people have confidence in what you are going to do. You cannot just announce that for the first time, am no longer going to use indelible ink. People will raise questions, because technology does not always work,” he said.
Prof Asare called on Mrs Jean Mensa to build consensus on the policy to ensure smooth implementation.
“That is why the onus is on the Electoral Commission to bring the people along through the use of pilot testing. For instance, if this district level elections had not failed so miserably, they could have tried this and report to the people, the results of their pilot and that would build people’s confidence. So that going into 2024, you can extend the number of centres that do that, and by 2028 most people will be comfortable and you can implement it full scale in 2028. But we are too quick to introduce big changes and try to implement them. That will give you problems,” he cautioned.
It would be recalled that other stakeholders, including the National Democratic Congress (NDC), have resisted the dicision to stop using indelible ink to identify electorates who have voted.
National Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah said the discontinuation will lead to nefarious activities that will compromise the integrity of the elections.
Discontinuation of use of indelible ink will compromise the election results – NDC
Addressing a press conference in Accra on Monday January 8, he said “The discontinuation of the use of indelible ink at this stage will open the flood gate for nefarious activities that will compromise the integrity of our elections. Have we as Ghanaians said we will not pay for the indelible ink?
“The EC must not make life easy for criminals to exploit our electoral process.”
Mr Asiedu Nketiah is not te only one calling on the Commission to abort this plan.
The Majority Leader Osei-Kyei-Mensah Bonsu also told the EC to have a second look at its decision.
He also told the Commission not to close polls at 3 PM as it is proposing.
“If we are sure that we will start early and then create many more polling stations such that by 2 PM, 90 or 95 percent have voted, why not? But we should not create a situation where instead of cleaning up the system we rather end up creating chaos,” he told TV3’s Beatrice Adu in an interview.
“If you want to end at 3PM, instead of starting at 7AM and beginning at 8AM, you create chaos,” he stressed.