With barely three months to the December polls, the President of the Republic of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, has used his first policy statement to inform Ghanaians that the holding of peaceful, free and fair elections is not a priority of his ruling National Democratic Congress administration.
In outlining the "Critical policy actions of the John Dramani Mahama Administration" yesterday, he stated that the priorities that were set for the final year of the first term included consolidating inflation decline, maintaining discipline in government expenditure, implementing single spine salary structure, among other things.
What was conspicuously missing from this list of priorities was ensuring that the elections of this year become peaceful, free and fair. This very important issue was rather consigned to a list of so called "number of other subjects" that was added to the speech.
This development has sent worrying signals to many Ghanaians, who the New Statesman spoke to. They interpret this to mean that the president does not consider the holding of peaceful elections on December 7 a priority.
Considering the nature of political divisions and tension in the country, as well as the confusion that has characterized the attempt to create 45 constituencies, Ghanaians all over the country believe that holding peaceful elections would have been the topmost priority of the government.
Analysts believe that this stance adopted by government, to disregard the holding of peaceful elections as one of its priorities, may have informed the decision of the police and other security agencies not to fully investigate and prosecute the many issues of violence that characterized the biometric voter registration process.
It will be recalled that Ursula Owusu and other prominent members of the NPP were assaulted in the Odododiodio constituency, allegedly on the orders a key castle operative, and nothing was done about the case.
Also, an NDC operative shot a twelve-year old juvenile at a polling station in Kumasi and is still walking free. In Tafo-Pankrono, thugs attacked some polling stations and destroyed equipment. The district police commander who dared to do something about the situation and bring the thugs to book was publicly reprimanded and has since been transferred from his post.
In general, none of the cases of violence that happened during the registration exercise has been fully investigated and prosecuted, causing some trepidation among the populace. All of these situations occurred when John Mahama was the chairman of the police council and had direct oversight responsibility for the police service.
�John Mahama's admission that peaceful election is not a priority of his administration therefore comes as no shock to those that have followed his career critically. Ghanaians therefore will have to pray to God to intervene in the current situation,� a source at the NPP headquarters told the New Statesman.
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