Making Ghana’s electoral institutions work like the US’s – Mahama to govt

General news for Monday, November 9, 2020

Source: 3 News

2020-11-09

Former President John Mahama has called on the Ghanaian authorities to ensure that institutions such as the Election Commission and the Judiciary can work without fear or favor, as is the case in the United States of America (USA).

Mahama pointed out that during the recently concluded elections in the United States, despite appeals by the incumbent president to the electoral institutions to stop the counting of votes, they were able to ignore it and worked as they should.

Ghanaian institutions must be able to work in the same way, he told TV3’s Komla Kluste in an interview on Sunday, November 8, about the results of the American polls.

“It is admirable when institutions work in a country. Despite the fact that the elections did not go like the president and he asked for the scrutiny to stop, the institutions continued to function as they should, ”he observed. “That is the kind of operability and strengthening of institutions that we seek in Ghana. That institutions can function without political influence. I wonder what would have happened if the same had happened in Ghana.

“But we’ll see how things go, we all have to work so that our institutions such as the Electoral Commission, the Judiciary and the institutions that anchor our democracy are strengthened so that no matter which government is in place, they offer the appropriate services” .

He further said: “I don’t want to attribute anything to him, but it seems that every time power has changed in the United States, it has also changed in Ghana. There is a certain certainty in this world that every four years there are elections in the United States in November and ours in December.

“I do not want to speculate, but the meaning of the election of a woman as vice president, Americans are going to have the first vice president

“We expect the same in Ghana, we have a very capable woman as my running mate.”

He added: “We should learn a lesson from what has happened in America. When you have a leader who becomes divisive, there are many doubts about his personal and family interest, abandons his allies and simply follows a one-sided policy, there will come a time when people will get fed up and rise up against you. . So I guess Trump’s term in office also has a lot of lessons for us here in Ghana. ”