GRAPHIC EDITORIAL: We wish NDC and its candidates well
Thankfully, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is holding its presidential and parliamentary primaries today following the withdrawal of the suit which sought to throw spanner into the works.
Advertisement
Earlier, one of the presidential hopefuls, Dr Kwabena Duffour, who was clearly unhappy, claimed there were discrepancies in the voters register to be used on the election day.
The Daily Graphic believes that the last-minute withdrawal of the suit from court to allow for the primaries to proceed should not end there. It should serve as a guide not only to the NDC but to all political parties to be more diligent and transparent in how they organise and manage internal elections through adequate engagement with all the stakeholders.
With the 30 years wealth of experience in the practice of democracy, we expect that political parties should be able to handle some of these challenges that crop up in the lead up to their internal elections.
If political parties are unable to engender trust in their own internal affairs, they extend such challenges to the national elections by viewing every action of the electoral management body with suspicion.
Another area of concern to us is the slow adoption of technology in election management, both at the intra-party and the inter-party level, to the extent that the vanquished always feels cheated. We must embrace digitisation in our elections just as we have relied on it in business, commerce and even other aspects of national life. We think that the country must begin to adopt technologies and policies which can even facilitate the early declaration of results.
As the NDC goes to the polls today, the Daily Graphic wishes all aspirants the best of luck as they seek the mandate of the people to represent the party in the 2024 general election.
We, therefore, expect the aspirants to go into the polls with two things in mind — either they will win or lose.
The victors must definitely celebrate but the celebration must not unduly offend the sensibilities of others while the losers accepted results in good faith and prepare for the next contest. However, if the losers think that anomalies in the conduct of the polls made them to lose, we urge them to follow due process to have their grievances addressed.
The Daily Graphic wishes the party successful primaries, and may the better candidates win.
