It is common to hear complaints that election campaigns consist of mudslinging, misrepresentation, lies and other tactics.
Since 2000, elections in Ghana have been lauded by observers both internally and externally as being “free and fair.” The losing political party, however, has consistently contested the election results.
Editor of the Ghanaian Publisher Newspaper, Yaw Obeng Manu has claimed that ‘stealing’ has always been a part of politics.
Speaking in an interview with Sefah-Danquah on the Happy Morning Show, he asserted “let nobody misunderstand what I am saying. Finding means of stealing is part of politics. From 1992 to 2020 citizens double vote, they do it all the time.”
After the 2004 presidential elections, three key opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) members challenged the results announced by the Electoral Commission (EC), suing the EC to publish detailed data from the election.
Similarly, at the end of the closely contested 2008 presidential election and the subsequent run-off, leading NDC members accused the EC of trying to manipulate results, and their frustrated supporters invaded the EC head office in Accra.
According to him, the political parties sponsor all those things in their stronghold, citing an example “I remember the time I went to the Northern Region where children around 8years were made to vote, and they were bold to tell me it is their stronghold when I confronted them. It means the political parties can do whatever they want.”
In the aftermath of the 2012 presidential election, the opposition NPP accused the winner – John Dramani Mahama and the NDC – of rigging the election, boycotted the inauguration of the president, and asked the Supreme Court to overturn the official results declared by the EC. This also happened after election 2020, where the NDC also accused the NPP of working together with the EC to rig the elections to favour the ruling NPP.
By: Naa Yarteley Yartey
