‘Be committed to fairness, transparency in electoral process’
The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration (MFARI), Mr Emmanuel Bombande, has observed that the best way to ensure peace and stability before and after the 2016 polls is for all stakeholders to be committed to fairness and transparency in the electoral process.
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“The peace and stability we need all depends on fairness and transparency in all processes leading to the elections. Fairness is not only about what happens on the election day; but rather, how the actors are able to commit to transparency in the build-up to the elections.
“Every process that leads to any decision by the Electoral Commission (EC) must emanate from a consensus by all stakeholders in order that no one will feel left out,” he added.
He was speaking at the Model United Nations (UN) conference for basic schools in Accra yesterday, at which 193 delegates represented UN countries and presented papers on the challenges that conflicts posed to member countries.
The conference
The conference, which was organised by Life link, a platform for training students on leadership, was partnered by the MFARI and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The event coincided with the celebration of the UN Day.
Mr Bombande observed that the capacity to ensure that the laws regulating the conduct of the election were applied dispassionately was key to ensuring peaceful and violence-free elections.
“We need to remind ourselves that our utterances of disrespect and denigrations are what could arouse anger and create violence. I think we need to realise that the Ghanaian culture frowns on making unruly comments and so when we mount political platforms, we need to respect our electorate and the public by staying clean in our choice of words”, he said.
He said Ghana had chalked up a lot of successes in its democratic dispensation since the country returned to constitutional governance with the inception of the Fourth Republic, arguing that there was the need for all stakeholders to play their roles well to sustain and consolidate the gains.
Unity in diversity
Mr Bombande said the fact that people belonged to different political ideologies should not provide enough grounds for disunity and political conflict.
“If you go to our Parliament now, you will realise that the elected legislators come from different political parties, but they make laws to govern all of us. This should send a clear signal that elections should not be treated as a means to an end”, he added.
Touching on the model UN conference, he said it was a step in the right direction, adding that the youth ought to be equipped with leadership skills that would make them better leaders in the future.
He observed that the issues that emanated from the discussions from the delegates at the conference regarding the conflict situation in UN member countries ought to be tackled through multi-faceted collaborations.
According to him, there was the need for countries in Africa to look at conflict management beyond territorial boundaries so that amicable solutions and compromises could be reached.
Training the youth
The Director for programmes at Life Link Ghana, Mr Dennis Penu, said the successes that past participants in similar conferences organised by the organisation had chalked up indicated that if countries committed more resources to training young people, they would be equipped with the right knowledge to address key national challenges.
He, therefore, called for the right structures to be put in place by people in authority to facilitate the training of the younger generation.