Similarity between perceived electoral failures in Ghana and Kenya

During and after the announcement of the presidential election results by the IEBC on 9th March 2013, the failures of the electoral body came into stark focus. These ranged from systemic technological breakdowns to opaque tallying and verification processes. A similarly closely contested election took place in Ghana in December 2012 in which the New Patriotic Party (NPP) challenged the validity and credibility of the results declared by the Electoral Commission in favour of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). There is an on- going petition before the Supreme Court in Ghana challenging the credibility of the elections in December 2012. The Ghanaian case before the Supreme Court raises issues that have a striking similarity to the dispute in Kenya. Despite the charged political rivalry between the NPP and NDC, the dispute in Ghana has not resulted in any violence because the populace has faith in the judicial system. Kenyans have exercised similar civility and there is no reason why current contestations should affect stability given the level if public confidence in the judiciary in contrast to 2007. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Ghana has challenged the validity and credibility of the results declared by the Electoral Commission in favour of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). According to lawyers for the NPP, the following irregularities and failures were observed. · The process of verification of results by political parties was not transparent; · There were discrepancies between the total number of votes cast for presidential and parliamentary elections respectively; · There were widespread instances where there were no signatures of the presiding officers or their assistants on the declarations forms as required under election Regulations; · The election was also invalidated by gross and widespread irregularities and malpractices which fundamentally assailed the validity of the results in four thousand, seven hundred and nine (4,709) polling stations; · There were widespread instances where the serial numbers on ‘pink sheets’, the equivalent of Kenya’s form 34’s, with different poll results. The proper and due procedure established by Electoral Commission required that each polling station have a unique serial number in order to secure the integrity of the polls and will of lawfully registered voters; The NPP alleges that the total number of registered voters as published by the Electoral Commission and provided to all political parties or candidates for the presidential and parliamentary election was fourteen million, thirty-one thousand, six and eighty (14,031,680). Instead, when the Electoral Commission announced the results of the presidential election on 9th December 2012, the total number of registered voters that the Commission announced mysteriously mutated to a new and inexplicable figure of fourteen million, one hundred and fifty-eight thousand, eight hundred and ninety (14,158,890). There is total difference of 127,210 votes is in the Ghanaian dispute. The NPP alleges widespread instances of voting without prior biometric verification. It also alleges widespread instances of absence of the signatures of presiding officers or their assistants on the Declaration Forms known as ‘pink sheets’ which are the equivalent of Forms 34 in Kenya. There were allegedly widespread instances where the words and figures of votes cast in the elections and as recorded on the ‘pink sheets’ (equivalent of form 34’s) did not match; According to the NPP’s grievances, the statutory violations and irregularities and malpractices described above, which were apparent on the Declaration Forms (‘pink sheets’), had the direct effect of introducing into the aggregate of valid votes recorded in the polling stations across the country, an enormous figure of one million, three hundred and forty-two thousand, eight hundred and forty-five (1,342,845) irregular votes. This allegedly negated `the validity of the votes cast and had ‘a material and substantial effect on the outcome of the election’. Given Ghana’s record as one of Africa’s leading democracies, it is disturbing that significant inaccuracies of this magnitude have come on record. In Kenya, following the reforms suggested by the Independent Review Commission (Kriegler Commission) and subsumed into the Elections Act and relevant regulations, it is troubling that similar failures to those in 2007 appear to have occurred under the watch of the Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). The Kriegler Report determined that the verification process by the then Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK) were undertaken unscrupulously in 2007. The ECK database computed a fifteen per-cent (15%) inaccuracy level with regard to form 16’s which constitutes the equivalent of our present forms Further, in several constituencies of the 2007 election, there were considerable discrepancies recorded between presidential and parliamentary election turnout. It appears that little may have improved with regard to election management since 2007. Interestingly, the IEBC visited Ghana in December 2012 to observe electoral process and supposedly benefit from comparative best practices.