A group called the Distinguished Scholars of Africa has called for a legitimate, open and verifiable elections on December 7 to avoid disputed results, which will end up in the Supreme Court like it happened in 2012.
This, the group believes, is the surest way to securing an amicable lawful transition.
Citing the current impasse with the election in the United States of America to make its point, the President of the Distinguished Scholars of Africa, Dr Nana Oppong, noted that it is crucial for all stakeholders in the electoral process, including the Electoral Commission (EC), the security services, political parties, media and most importantly the citizens to prioritise an open and verifiable electoral process.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, November 27, 2020, on the theme: “Securing Amicable Lawful Transition (SALT) by Legitimate Open and Verifiable Elections (LOVE),” he said: “The solution is to make sure from the beginning, (prevention is better than cure), we have a legitimate, meaning everyone who’s entitled to vote should be allowed to vote without intimidation, without harassment and on time.”
“An open election, an election where you can see it happening one by one. At every polling station, there are so many multiple observers from the many parties and everything is going on.
“Then, each vote, properly stored, not destroyed, not discounted and counted and the counting is done openly, correctly.
“And the tally is proper; when that is done and the results are cleared by multiple agencies, there would be no need for the Supreme Court; and even if there’s a need for Supreme Court, they will simply affirm, I’m sure, the facts. The facts are stronger than the law,” he added.
Dr Nana Oppong and his group of scholars are also proposing a system of electing judges to the Supreme Court other than the President being solely responsible for choosing who gets to adjudicate matters at the Supreme Court.
For his part, Chairman of the event, Dr Bernard Tetteh-Dumanya encouraged all eligible voters to turn out massively on Election Day to vote.
He mentions that this will eliminate any likelihood of disputed election results.
He said: “If you don’t vote, if I don’t vote, we will not make it decisive so that somebody goes to Supreme Court for any judge or whatever. The judges are also human and even some have political inclination. So we should be able to do that (vote), and once we do that we will have the peace that we are looking for.”