Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, President of the ECOWAS Commission, has charged Ghana to give the African Continent a clean break from recent bitter polls in Kenya and Zimbabwe by holding a peaceful and credible ballot in December.

He said a priority and (main interest) of the Economic Community of West African States, is to ensure that the elections in Ghana are credible, transparent, free and fair and that they will contribute to the consolidation of democratic governance on the continent.

“This year we have had two unfortunate incidents in Kenya and in Zimbabwe. We need a happy story and I believe that Ghana has that possibility to give us a successful case of well conducted, properly conducted elections.”

Dr. Chambas was speaking to Myjoyonline after attending an international conference on “African Youth & Employment” in Accra aimed at proposing recommendations to the Africa Commission on how to sustain higher economic growth and create jobs for the increasing number of young people on the continent.

The Africa Commission, an initiative of the Danish Government, is aimed at seeking new ideas and strategies to strengthen international development cooperation with Africa and was launched in April 2008.

Dr. Chambas said ECOWAS was working to send a team ahead of the elections to “see what is the state of preparedness of the country; what are the issues at stake in terms of a level playing field for the parties.”

He said the ECOWAS team will talk to all the stakeholders; leaders and executives of political parties, civil society, the private sector and several others to ensure a level playing field and that the rules are clear and accepted by all.

“Again come December, we will be back in a big way to make sure that Ghana which has so far been doing fairly well in terms of the conduct of elections, we keep on track and avoid anything that can derail the democratic process.”

The ECOWAS President said he felt happy that as a citizen of Ghana, he has an opportunity to contribute to this process. But he was worried too, that the recent limited registration exercise to absorb newly qualified voters and others who missed previous voter registrations; part of the process leading to the desired peaceful and credible polls in December, recorded some disturbances, even if minor.

“I did receive some reports of violence, I must say they were minor incidents but that worried me. I mean it’s uncalled for and I think the impression is that the two major parties can do well to rein in their supporters and they have obviously, a burden that they carry there, to ensure that politics is a healthy competition, a fight of ideas and not something where you mobilize, in the Ghanaian context what is called ‘macho men,’ to go out and intimidate people. I think that is an unhealthy practice that the two major parties can do well to move away from.”


Story by Isaac Yeboah