Let's maintain our democratic credentials

What is worrying, however, is that the major opposition party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has protested against the declaration of the winner of the polls, and its presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is yet to concede defeat.

We have come a long way on our journey to establish Ghana as the strongest democracy in Africa. So far, we have not disappointed our neighbours, having received global acclaim for respecting democratic principles and good governance.

However, the signals from the NPP do not portend bright prospects for our democratic future, especially when international observers have described the polls as free and fair.

We concede that the NPP has the right to seek redress to its grievances. If it uses the grievance procedure to seek redress, it may deepen the democratic process. That right remains within the bosom of the party.

Our prayer, however, is that the NPP should be able to restrain its teeming supporters from taking the law into their own hands. Some of the supporters nearly took over the premises of the Electoral Commission (EC) last Sunday had it not been for the tactful manner in which the security personnel reasoned with them.

Again, we must state that political victory all over the world is sweet and worth celebrating. But because politics is an emotive matter, our appeal to the victors is that they should be moderate in their celebration in order to assuage the pain of the losers.

After all, we are all one people with a common destiny and the task of nation-building can be better accomplished if all hands are on deck.

A critical look at the results indicates that the country is almost divided along the two main political parties, the NPP and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The Daily Graphic thinks that our politics has been too adversarial from time immemorial, thereby raising the stakes very high and reducing democratic governance into a do-or-die affair.

We urge all our political leaders to put behind them the challenges that have come up in the aftermath of the declaration of the results.

The Daily Graphic appeals to our spiritual and temporal leaders to step into the fray to get the leaders of the major political parties to find a way out of the challenge.

We repeat our appeal to the winners to be moderate in their celebration and, to the losers, it is our wish that if they do not have strong evidence, they should concede defeat, so that they are not accused of being bad losers.

No matter the posture of the NPP, the Daily Graphic appeals to President Mahama, as the father of the nation, to extend a hand to all Ghanaians, irrespective of their political affiliations, to join him to govern the country.

We believe that sooner than later good reason will prevail for our political leaders to recognise that the way forward lies in political dialogue.