The possibility of conducting the December 7, 2020 elections has been confirmed affirmative, however, stakeholders and expert say careful measures must be taken to mitigate the risk levels.
Public health expert, Dr. John Amuasi while speaking on the PM Express indicated that where there is a will, there is a way hence the 2020 elections can hold if certain factors are considered.
He commended the Electoral Commission (EC) for already highlighting some measures to be put in place prior to the election to ensure its smooth process.
He said, “I realized that the EC has already outlined some very clear steps, most of it I’m just going to reiterate. The idea of the mask wearing is one of the most powerful things that can be put forward…when you ask me, considerations of giving out free masks should be made and the necessary cost implications certainly should go in there because the mask reduces the risk of transmission. When you combine mask wearing with handwashing, sanitizer use and social distancing, it’s a very powerful tool. Any one of them taken out of the equation substantially reduces the overall benefit or increases significantly the risk of spread.”
Speaking about checking temperature of individuals; be it voters, EC officials, political party executives, journalists among others who may be at voting centres, Dr. Amuasi indicated that high temperature could be a “husk” as so many things can cause an increased temperature.
He further suggested that special processes should be put in place to ensure that no one raises a false alarm.
Also joining the discussion via zoom, the Director of International Relations for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Alex Segbefia stressed that there will be dire consequences if elections are not conducted this year but he believes that if the EC should use the old register, it would alleviate risk factors.
According to the former health minister, the opposition party has no problem with the December 7 elections should the necessary protocols be observed. However, they’re concerned about four separate incidents that are going to build up to the main elections and require Ghanaians to congregate which he believes, would put Ghanaians at risk on four different occasions.
Explaining his argument, he said,
“the first is when the three million people who have registered with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) are going to pick up their cards and that’s a whole process in itself because they have to go through verification. So, whatever process you outline in terms of ppes, face masks and all the protocols have to be conducted when three million people are going to get their cards. Then, you have almost five to six million people who haven’t registered with the National Identification Authourity (NIA) and are going to try and register during that period because they need the National or the Ghana card along with a passport and two other people. You need that requirement based on the C.I that have gone through parliament, to actually be in a position to register. So, you have a second issue of people going through what we say ‘a very dangerous procedure’ while we’re having just the discussion on election.”
Still rooting for the use of the old register, Alex Segbefia said,
“then after that, you’re going to go through 16 and a half or 17 million people going to go through a registration process before you get to the election for 17 million people to go and vote. Now, for some of us just looking at the end problem without seeing what is going to come before, in terms of risk factors to the Ghanaian people, my view is simply that, if the EC should decide that look, we will deal with the old register, that will mean that all the first three issues I have raised will not arise.”
According to him, the NDC believes that if the concentration is on the main election then a lot of risks would be taken away from the Ghanaian people since “issue of a new register is going to open up a kind of worms”.
Countering Alex Segbefia’s points against the new voter’s register, the Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said the election cannot be used as an excuse to jump some of the steps or rules or mandates as exist in the books. He believes that what needs to be done “is to confront the beast in the room”.
According to him, “even if we said we want to go ahead with the election without a new register as the EC is suggesting that it wants to do, we’ll still need to register persons who have turned 18 this year. It brings you to the same question of risk all being to different numbers. When you’re done, you still need to do an exhibition exercise or some sort which still brings you to the same level of risk in which in this case, is not altered or mitigated.”
The Information Minister indicated that “our democracy is expensive” however “we’re a nation of laws and not men” hence there is no softer way to dealing the issue at hand.
He further stated that the EC is an independent body hence,
“the EC will decide in the end what needs to be done. Even when we’re of the view that what the EC is saying doesn’t make legal sense or doesn’t conform to public policy like some of the arguments, there’s a good avenue to get that vacated and that will be the court.”
According to him, in the absence of that, we need to, like what every other country is doing, focus energies on mitigation of risks.
“How do you mitigate the various risks along the way and I think the earlier we start putting our energies into that exercise of the mitigation of the risks, as against reengineering old issues against the EC’s position which issues can best be ventilated in the court for a proper decision to be made, the better we will be.”
