As Ghanaians head to the polls on Saturday, 7th December, 2024, the prayer and hope of a majority of the citizens and the world at large, is in respect of a peaceful and credible election result.
In order to achieve these objectives, we ought to remind ourselves of some basic roles incumbent upon all interested parties, especially the polling agents.
Agents of the various political parties and candidates are expected to arrive at their designated polling stations at least an hour before the polls open. This is to afford the agents the opportunity to inspect the election materials and particularly the ballot boxes to ensure that they are not preloaded with already thumb printed ballot papers for a particular candidate.
The competing political parties and candidates are advised to ensure that there is enough supply of water, energy drinks and food for their agents. There is the danger of some unscrupulous competitors lacing drinks or food with a sleeping or disabling substance and passing the poisoned drink/food to a competitor’s agent to knock the agent(s) out and manipulate the election result.
The Electoral Commission (EC) officials should not also accept any drink or food from anyone other than the EC, due to the above stated reasons.
Agents are expected to be present and vigilant throughout the election process and only raise concerns in accordance with the procedures spelt out in the 1992 Constitution, C. I. 127 and other relevant laws governing the conduct of the elections.
If after the sorting out of the ballot papers at the end of the poll and an agent is not satisfied with the counting of the ballot papers, the agent is at liberty to request for a recount of the ballot papers and the Presiding Officer MUST grant such a request as provided under C. I. 127. Any further request for a recount of the ballot papers is at the discretion of the Presiding Officer.
The Presiding Officer may deny the second recount request if he/she concludes that the request is unreasonable. In that circumstance, the Presiding Officer together with all the polling agents will have to go to the collation centre for the Returning Officer to do the recount if the agent insist.
In addition, agents should insist that the two (2) copies of the statement of poll and declaration of results forms are filled out. These forms are two (2). It appears as one document, but there is a hard cover in the middle that separate the document into two (2). The rationale is that in case there a mistake when filling out the top one, or where the candidates are many, the bottom one can be used in order to get more copies for the agents. To be on the safer side, agents are to insist that the bottom one is filled out with the same information as the top one, whether there is a mistake or not. A bent Presiding Officer can fill out the bottom copy with doctored figures to suit a particular candidate while in transit to deliver the statement of poll and declaration of results to the Returning Officer at the collation centre.
Finally, agents are encouraged to hand over the pink sheets to their respective collation agents immediately after the results are certified and announced at the polling station. Without the pink sheet from the polling station, the collation agent will not be in a position to challenge any result at the collation centre.
In respect of the above, political parties and the various candidates can zone each constituency or zone into smaller catchment areas and appoint someone to collect the pink sheets from the polling station agents in the designated area and deliver same to the collation agent. This will reduce the extra burden placed on the agents. These are people who have sacrificed for their party or candidate the whole day, so the agent should be relieved of the additional burden of going to the collation centre to queue to hand over the pink sheet to the collation agent.
It is hoped that this submission will go a long way to further cement democracy in Ghana.
Dr. Alhassan Salifu Bawah
(son of an upright peasant farmer)
