Emerging Security Threats to Ghanas 2012 Elections

Paper presented at the launch of 2012 Ghana Peace Campaign at the College of Physicians, Ridge-Accra, Ghana by Festus K. Aubyn (KAIPTC)

Introduction I am very delighted to be part of todays launch of the Ghana Peace Campaign 2012 and I want to thank the organizers for the invitation. I will look at two main issues in this presentation. First, I will look at some of the factors that can threaten the peace of the nation as we prepare towards the elections in December 7 and beyond. And second, what can be done to salvage the situation from degenerating into conflicts. Before I go to my main points for this presentation, I just want to draw your attention to the security situation in the West African Sub-region for us to know that we have no option than to ensure that the December 7th elections is not only peaceful but free and fair. To begin with there are developmental challenges and security problems in almost every country in the West Africa Sub-region. In Nigeria Boko Haram is trying all it can to make the country ungovernable for the government of President Goodluck Jonathan. In Mali and Guinea Bissau, recent military coups have derailed the countries democratic processes. Mali in particular has to fight the Tuareg rebels to regain the areas like Timbuktu taken by the rebels. Senegal just emerged from elections that were fraught with a lot of violence. Liberia and Sierra Leone are still rebuilding their economies after several years of civil war to ensure economic growth and am not sure they are ready to receive any refugees from Ghana to add up to the countries problems. Cote Divoire after the post-election violence in 2011 and Niger are all in the state of rebuilding their nation. All this is to tell you why Ghana is seen as bacon of democracy in West Africa and why we need to maintain our position as a trail blazer of African democracy. If this election is not managed well and it leads to conflict it will be very difficult for us to even get refugee status in any country across the sub-region. But I hope Ghana will not get to that stage.

Now to my main points for discussions today: Despite the description of Ghana as a beacon of African democracy, the democratic process in the country is still fragile and needs to be safeguarded. Efforts to achieve genuine democratic consolidation have proven laborious. The political landscape in Ghana now is characterised by several issues or threats which if not adequately tackled can derail the countrys democratic dividends. They include among other things: The high level of mistrust and suspicion by political parties of government institutions such as EC, Judiciary and Security Agencies (police to be prcised); these institutions are constantly been attacked by political parties who most often accused them of nonobjectivity and political bias. There is the general lack of accommodation of opposition views which often leads to violent confrontations high rate of political intolerance in the country. Use of aggressive and violent languages in political discourse popularly known as the Politics of insults; and increasingly level of media polarization and bias political reportage- now politicians are establishing radio stations and newspapers in the country. While this in itself is not bad, the increasing use of such media outlets to channel all kinds of lies, insults and propaganda against political opponents gives cause for concern. I want all of us to refresh our memories with some of these little things that were taken for granted in some countries like Rwanda which eventually took Rwanda to war of which hundreds of thousands lost their lives to the extent that wives even gave out their husbands. We need as country to constantly remind ourselves of the facts and reality of the Rwandas genocide among others and the fact that bullets know no boundary in times of war. Inadequate voter and civic education which is often the cause of most election violence (e.g. ongoing biometric registration); The manipulation of deep regional and ethnic cleavages, unresolved land disputes, ethnic and chieftaincy disputes by political elites are another major threat to peace. Most of

these issues have been politicize along NPP and NDC lines and electioneering campaigns easily provide avenues for belligerents to settle local scores and politicians have also exploited this for their selfish political gains. The consequence is that this pattern of vote mobilization often invited violent reaction from competing groups, raised the stakes of the competition and often ignited violence at the slightest provocation. Poverty of the masses which serves as a conduit for vote buying and youth mobilization for violence; intense mobilization for violence at opposition strongholds, the so called world bank; there is also an emerging and deepening of alliances and formations of groups especially youth groupings who are most often used to intimidate political opponents. (Azorka boys, Kandaha boys, All die be die fun club etc). The use of private and personal policing Machomen during elections has gained much roots in our political system. Issues of small arms and light weapons proliferation in the country also calls for concern as it can cause insecurity in the upcoming elections. The porous nature of our borders and the conflicts in neighbouring countries has led to the influx of small arms in the country and this need to be checked. For example a recent report by TV3 indicated that in every election year in Ghana about 450 to 500 people die as a result of conflicts resulting from small arms according to the Small Arms Commission of Ghana.

All these issues however, challenge us to eschew complacency and should stimulate us to scale up our efforts to defend our modest democratic gains. The fact is that these issues or the situation in the country is not so much different from what happened in other countries that experienced election violence such as Kenya in 2007, Cote dIvoire in 2011, Nigeria in April 2012, and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2012. Most of these countries like Kenya and Cote Divoire were very stable and peaceful countries like Ghana until they plunged into conflicts. It is no secret that the current political tensions in the country is very high and this serve as a call for all stakeholders to step up their efforts to ensure that peace prevails in all phases of our electoral process.

Some Recommendations: Most of the threats to peace in the upcoming elections demands intensive peace education through voter and civic education of the population about the electoral process. People must be made to understand that elections are not about violence, it is just part of the democratic process where leaders are chosen for the executive and legislative arms of government. Others demand political parties to abide and conform to EC Code of Conducts and laws governing elections in Ghana and the Political Parties Code of Conduct which they themselves have set for themselves to follow. To this end there is the need for regular political engagements between political parties at the national, regional, district, constituency and community level (IPAC meetings) to dialogue over electoral disputes. CSOs also need to step up/intensify their peace campaigns and voter education especially at the grass root level at the conflict prone areas. Sometimes I feel most of the peace interventions fail to get to the grassroots level who are often the people exploited to foment troubles. The leadership of various political parties including the ruling party must go beyond the political rhetorics and hypocrisy of being peaceful and ensure that communication persons of their parties try hard to resist the temptation of responding to insults from the opposing side in equal measure but rather use due process to address such issues in order not to commit a fallacy of two wrongs make a right and leave the judgment to the listening public as civil society also reasserts its rightful position of neutrality in order to make impact in commenting on such matters. Professionalism of the Security Agencies: It is important to remind security authorities to help kill the culture of impunity which is gaining ascendancy in the Ghanaian society by prosecuting offenders of electoral laws to serve as a deterrent to others who would want to incite people to violence (no selective justice, people should be dealt with irrespective of party affiliation). The crux of the matter is that the security agencies, especially the police have not been able to deal swiftly with electoral related violence. The apparent lack of vigilance on the part of the police to respond rapidly to such

situations creates security vacuum within the political environment which is often exploited by mob forces. In order for the police to be more proactive and professional in the discharge of their law enforcement duties, they should do more intelligence gathering of political issues at both the national and constituency levels. This will lead to effective ways of combating electoral violence instead of using approaches that focus on political opinions which lead to desperate arrests and always having their cases thrown out of court for insufficient prove. Having an intelligence-based approach to law enforcement duties in electoral matters goes to strengthen their neutral and impartial position with the general public which also helps to regain the confidence of the public. But the success of the security agencies will also depend on the behaviour of security personnels before, during and after the elections. There is the need for a credible and transparent behaviour to engender trust in the system. The National Election Security Taskforce (NESTF) needs to be formed to start planning for the elections; they should not wait for two months to December 7 before it is formed. Political campaigns have started and the stakes are already high. What is happening in the ongoing biometric registration is a testament of a lack of adequate preparedness of the police. In conclusions, I want to state that ensuring that the elections are peaceful is not only the responsibility of the EC, Government or security services; it is a collective responsibility of all stakeholders including political parties, media, civil society, religious and traditional leaders as well as individual voters. Ghana is the only country we have, lets us all try to preserve the peace and stability we are enjoying today.

Thank You for Your Attention