Ghana’s general elections, slated for December this year, are very crucial to the people of Ghana as well as the international community. Already, some opinion leaders have started commenting on the elections, thus indicating that all eyes are on Ghana.
Therefore there is the need for the Electoral Commission, an {www:independent} body mandated by the 1992 Constitution of Ghana in Article 45 (c) to conduct and supervise all public elections and referenda in the country to ensure that the elections are free, fair and {www:peaceful} so the out come of the results will be accepted to all parties irrespective of who and which party emerge as the winner.
Ghana remains one of the most peaceful countries in Africa on the score sheet. This year’s elections will be the fifth consecutive elections in the Fourth Republic since 1993 when Ghana returned to constitutional rule. One may ask how this one will be. Well, the onus lies on all Ghanaians.
It is very important not to lose sight of the five Pillars of the National Orientation, Proud to be Ghanaian, Patriotism and Spirit of Ghana First, Positive and a “Can-Do-it” Attitude, Productivity and Accountability and Dedication and Discipline. These should serve as the guiding principles that no matter the situation, the Ghana first Pillar ought to be held in high esteem.
According to the President of the United States of America, George Bush, Ghana is showing Africa that democracy is not a challenge to be feared but a sure path to prosperity and peace. “Ghana and America stand as one in our work to {www:promote} free elections. Ghana is now in the middle of a lively elections season, marked by spirited debate close fought contests which sounds kind of familiar.” “Whatever the outcome, Ghana is showing Africa that democracy is not a challenge to be feared but a sure path to prosperity and peace. Ghana is a model of entrepreneurship, democracy and peace on the continent of Africa.”
These comments were made during President Agyekum Kufuor’s recent visit to the US. Undoubtedly, Ghana, one of the peaceful countries in Africa, is in the spot light as to how the elections will be organized.
These attest to the fact that proper measures ought to be put in place to fore-stall any anomaly that can be {www:detrimental} and lead to the derailment of the peace Ghanaians are enjoying.
Thankfully, the Electoral Commission has successfully endorsed seven political parties and an independent candidate to contest for the December 7 Presidential polls. These are New Patriotic Party (npp), National Democratic Congress (NDC), Convention People’s Party (CPP) and Peoples National Convention (PNC). Others are Democratic Freedom Party (DFP), Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) and Reformed Patriotic Democrats (RPD.
Now that the green light has been given to the presidential aspirants to officially campaign to canvas for votes, the duty then lies on the Flag Bearers to educate their supporters and followers to be disciplined and avoid the use of vulgar words which can mar the beauty of the elections.
The underlying causes of election disputes ought to be identified and properly addressed. This is because it has the tendency of derailing democracy in Africa rather than consolidating it. The responsible bodies ought to ensure that {www:proper} measures are put in place to curb election violence which is becoming a menace in Africa and should draw a demarcation between a winner and a loser.
Undoubtedly, in consolidating and expanding democratic rule and strengthening peaceful elections in Africa, the following cannot be overlooked. Transparency in the electoral process, the commitment of the incumbent government in ensuring that transparency, the capacity and commitment of all political parties to respect the rules and accept the outcome of the results as well as the commitment of all political parties not to escalate pre-electoral crisis.
Elections often bring controversy and can contain seeds of conflicts. In other words, conflict is inevitable in elections. However, achieving positive results rest on how the government, the courts, the electoral commission, political parties, the party supporters, the police as well as the media manages election-related conflicts.
Corruption and abuse of power are the canker on the continent of Africa and cannot be ruled out as reasons why some governments refuse to {www:relinquish} power when they lose elections because they fear prosecution.
It is noteworthy that as part of efforts to ensure peaceful upcoming elections, the Director-General of Police Operations, Mr Patrick Timbillah, has called on the personnel of the Security Services to remain neutral at all times.
According to him, neutrality, firmness, fairness, resoluteness and consistency of the personnel, coupled with a high sense of professionalism will win them public confidence and disabuse the minds of people of any suspicion of bias.
The media, the fourth realm of state, have also been brought to the limelight by the Chief Justice, Mrs Justice Georgina Wood at the 13th Annual Ghana Journalists Association Awards and Dinner Night in Accra. She said one of the pre-conditions for credible elections in December is for Journalists in the country to live up to their role as neutral referees.
Indeed, the observation by the Chief Justice is in the right direction because there is the perception that the media often contribute to election disputes in some parts of the world as a result of bias reportage.
The devastating nature of elections in neighbouring countries such as Angola, Liberia, Somalia, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone among others should be a lesson to Ghanaians to manage this year’s elections to expectation so that Ghana does not become a centre of controversy.
The Zimbabwean electoral crisis a couple of months ago, has left the country in a serious political turmoil despite an agreement reached for power sharing between the ruling ZANU-PF headed by Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change headed by Morgan Tsvangirai.
The Zimbabwe election dispute has led to the loss of several lives and properties, with some people displaced. It has the world’s highest inflation record of over 11, 000,000 per cent. The question is does Ghana want to be in this situation? Certainly not.
It will be recalled that early this year, during President Kufuor’s last People’s Assembly in Sekondi-Takoradi in the Western Region, he assured Ghanaians that he is prepared to handover power irrespective of who emerges as winner by legitimate means in the December polls.
This is a very good assurance from the President. All the presidential aspirants and their supporters ought to bear in mind that it is only through legitimate means that one can become President in this democratic era and must therefore respect the verdict of the electorates, since they are the deciders of who becomes the President of the Republic of Ghana.
This is the time to prove to the whole world that indeed, Ghana is the gate way to Africa, by ensuring that the upcoming elections are free, fair, peaceful and democratically accepted without any issue of power sharing.
It looks like a mirage but the lush fields of cauliflower, apricot trees and melon growing among a vast stretch of sand north of Cairo’s pyramids is all too real — proof of Egypt’s determination to turn its deserts green.
While climate change and land overuse help many deserts across the world advance, Egypt is slowly greening the sand that covers almost all of its territory as it seeks to create more space for its growing population.
Tarek el-Kowmey (45) points proudly to the banana trees he grows on what was once Sahara sands near the Desert Development Centre, north of Cairo, where scientists experiment with high-tech techniques to make Egypt’s desert bloom.
“All of this used to be just sand,” he said. “Now we can grow anything.”
With only 5% of the country habitable, almost all of Egypt’s 74-million people live along the Nile River and the Mediterranean Sea. Already crowded living conditions — Cairo is one of the most densely populated cities on Earth — will likely get worse as Egypt’s population is expected to double by 2050.
So the government is keen to encourage people to move to the {www:desert} by pressing ahead with an estimated $70-billion plan to reclaim 1,2-million hectacres of desert over the next 10 years. Among the incentives are cheap desert land to college graduates.
But to make these areas habitable and capable of cultivation, the government will need to tap into scarce water resources of the Nile River as rainfall is almost non-existent in Egypt.
The plan has raised controversy among some conservationists who say turning the desert green is neither practical nor sustainable and might ultimately backfire.
Anders Jagerskog, director of the Stockholm International Water Institute in Sweden, questions the wisdom of using precious water resources to grow in desert areas unsuited to cultivation and where water will evaporate quickly under the scorching sun.
“A desert is not the best place to grow food,” he said. “From a political perspective, it makes sense in terms of giving more people jobs even though it is not very rational from a water perspective,” he added.
Regional tension?
The scope of the reclamations could also add to regional tension over Nile water sharing arrangements as in order to green its desert Egypt might need to take more than its share of Nile water determined by international treaties.
Egypt’s project to reclaim deserts in the south, called “Toshka”, would expand Egypt’s farmland by about 40% by 2017, using about five billion cubic metres of water a year.
That worries neighbours to the south who are already unhappy about Nile water sharing arrangements. Under a 1959 treaty between Egypt and Sudan, Egypt won rights to 55,5-billion cubic metres per year, more than half of the Nile’s total flow.
Ethiopia, where the Blue Nile begins, receives no formal allocation of Nile water, but it is heavily dependent on the water for its own agricultural development in this often famine ravaged country.
“The Toshka project will complicate the challenge of achieving a more equitable allocation of the Nile River with Ethiopia and the other Nile basin countries ,” said Sandra Postel, director of the United States-based Global Water Policy Project.
“Egypt may be setting the stage for a scenario that’s ultimately detrimental to itself.”
But other experts suggest that in the delicate arena of water politics, it may be more of an imperative for Egypt’s government to mollify its own population rather than heed its neighbours concerns.
Overcrowding is straining infrastructure in the cities and the government is worried that opposition groups such as the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, which has a fifth of the seats in Parliament, might capitalise on discontent.
“The government feels it needs to reduce the number of people in high density areas, which puts a lot of pressure on resources like fertile land,” said Mostafa Saleh, professor of ecology at Al-Azhar University in Cairo.
“They are trying to spread the population to other parts of the country.”
Desert tourism
Some critics say that Egypt should look at desert tourism rather than agriculture, which might not be sustainable or particularly profitable and could destroy fragile wildlife habitats that might otherwise be a drawcard for tourists.
A desert reclamation project last decade, south of Cairo, destroyed much of the Wadi Raiyan oasis and its population of slender horned gazelles.
“The price tag on these assets is huge, both as natural heritage and as a resource for tourism,” said ecologist Saleh.
Saleh is vice-president of an Egyptian firm that built an electricity-free eco lodge, consisting of rock salt and mud houses, amid olive and palm groves in the desert oasis of Siwa.
The lodge, which costs $400 per night and has attracted guests such as Britain’s Prince Charles and Belgium’s Queen Paola, shows that the desert would be better used for ecotourism than farming, he says.
“In Egypt, water is the most critical resource and we should be careful to use it to maximise revenue,” Saleh explained. “Agriculture is not the best option for Egypt. Nature-based tourism could bring in much more money.”
At the Desert Development Centre, irrigation water comes through a canal connected to the Nile, about 15km away, where it is used to keep crops flourishing and grass green for hardy hybrid cows to graze.
Experts at the centre believe greening the Sahara might be Egypt’s best hope of bringing prosperity to its people.
Workers graft fruit-bearing plants onto the stems of plants that survive well in the desert. Favourite fruits are citrus as they flourish in hot climates and can land on supermarket shelves in Europe hours after harvesting.
Proximity to markets in Europe and a lack of pests, which usually thrive in humid environments, make desert farming economically viable, said Richard Tutwiler, director of the Desert Development Centre at the American University in Cairo.
Water supply, Tutwiler said, shouldn’t be an issue at least for the next ten years. It makes sense, he says, to expand agriculture onto land that was once useless.
“There is no frost and there is sun all the time here,” he said. “Plants just go nuts.”
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – A river in Ethiopia’s highlands burst its banks after heavy rains, killing 11 people and stranding hundreds more, the state news agency said on Monday.
Flooding from the Wabe Shebelle river in southeast Ethiopia has submerged more than 100 villages, regional relief boss Eremdan Haji was quoted as saying by the Ethiopian News Agency.
“Inhabitants in 116 villages in an area covering a 90-km (56-mile) radius have been stranded on hillocks surrounded by the flood water,” he said.
“Efforts to rescue hundreds of marooned people have become impossible due to the extent of land covered by the flood.”
Some 6,000 head of livestock and 2,500 hectares of {www:crop} were destroyed, the official added, saying the government had sent 18,000 tonnes of food aid to the region near Somalia.
Local officials contacted by Reuters said they had no further {www:information} but were on their way to the flood area.
(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
LONDON (AFP) — President Paul Kagame of Rwanda said Monday that Europe had shown “total contempt” for his country by arresting one of his key aides suspected of involvement in the death of a former ruler.
He told the Financial Times the allegations against Rose Kabuye, his chief of protocol who was arrested in Frankfurt on November 9 on a French warrant, were “baseless”, and rejected the principle that allowed such an arrest.
Kabuye was arrested over her suspected involvement in the {www:assassination} of former Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana in 1994, and will be transferred into French custody on Wednesday.
The incident became the catalyst for the Rwandan genocide that started a few days later and left at least 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu Rwandans dead, according to the United Nations.
Kagame accused European countries of abusing the principle of universal jurisdiction, whereby one country’s courts can pursue another’s citizens.
“You don’t just give one country {www:jurisdiction} over another country, in particular if that country has actually been involved in the case. It is madness,” he told the business daily.
“It’s offensive in a {www:sense} that it is Africans who are perpetually the offenders, the criminals, and the others who are their judges.”
Arresting Kabuye has caused a diplomatic furore, being condemned by African organizations and greeted by {www:street} protests in the Rwandan capital Kigali.
Kagame’s government has accused France of having actively supported the genocide perpetrators and said Rwandan courts were poised to issue arrest warrants against 23 French military and political officials over their role.
MBABANE, SWAZILAND (AFP) – Police have arrested a Swaziland opposition leader as part of a crackdown under the country’s anti-terrorism laws, his family said on Sunday.
People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) leader Mario Masuku was arrested on Saturday and was being held in eastern Swaziland 180km from the capital, his son Mzwandile told AFP.
Police raided their home just outside Mbabane on the pretext that their father was a {www:terrorist}, he said.
“My father is expected to appear in court on Monday morning,” he said.
Swaziland is Africa’s last {www:monarchy}. Political organizations in Swaziland have been banned since 1973, and the king makes all key government appointments.
Held on terrorism charges
Police spokesperson Vusi Masuku confirmed the arrest of Masuku, but said he could not specify the charges.
However, Masuku’s family and lawyer were told that he was being held on terrorism charges.
Masuku, a vocal campaigner for multi-party democracy, was arrested in the mid-1980s for treason, a case he later won on appeal.
King Mswati III, who ascended the throne at age 18, has the power to appoint the prime minister, the legislature and the judiciary.
His country is one of Africa’s poorest, with one of the world’s highest HIV rates, and some have blamed the king’s state-sponsored extravagant lifestyle for draining Swaziland’s finances.
The banned Umbane People’s Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for several bomb blasts in the country in recent months.
ZIMBABWE, HARARE (IRIN) – President Robert Mugabe’s government is launching another wave of attacks against the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a spokesman for the party told IRIN, as a much vaunted power-sharing deal appeared to be on the verge of {www:collapse}.
The September 15 deal, brokered by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, never really made it out of the starting blocks, as Mugabe maintained his stance that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was “a stooge of the West” and refused to concede any of Zimbabwe’s security ministries to MDC control.
The wrangling over the implementation of the power-sharing deal – specifically over the home affairs ministry, which controls the police – continued against an upsurge in political violence.
Zimbabwe’s Lawyers for Human Rights reported recently that in September, the month the deal was signed, there were 1 300 cases of political {www:violence} against MDC supporters, a 39 percent increase over August. The acts of political violence included the destruction of property, rape and killings.
MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa told IRIN that Zanu-PF militias, in collaboration with state security operatives, were re-establishing torture camps and using them as bases from which to launch their attacks on MDC supporters.
“ZANU-PF is behaving like a party that has declared war on the people,” he said.
Torture camps were first set up in the wake of Mugabe’s defeat in the general election on March 29, when Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe and Zanu-PF lost control of Parliament for the first time since independence in 1980.
Tsvangirai withdrew from the presidential run-off because of the high level of political violence. Mugabe won the June 27 election in which he was the sole candidate.
Chamisa said, “On October 27, more than 30 MDC supporters were brutally attacked at Epworth, east of Harare, and several were hospitalised after sustaining serious injuries. Several torture camps have been set up throughout the country, where known or suspected MDC supporters are tortured by Zanu-PF militia,” he said.
Many rural districts are now under the {www:control} of army personnel, who are running local government and are responsible for food and seed distribution.
“On 30 October, state security agents in Mashonaland West Province raided the homes of the MDC leadership in Banket [about 100km northwest of Harare] and arrested nine MDC officials. The officials have not been brought before the courts,” Chamisa said.
He said that Zanu-PF militia was preventing MDC councillors from carrying out their duties throughout the country.
An officer in the Zimbabwe National Army, who spoke on condition he was not identified, told IRIN that since the March elections senior army officials had been deployed to rural districts, where they had virtually taken charge of all operations previously handled by local government officials.
“Many rural districts are under the control of colonels or lieutenant-colonels, who are running the local governments and are responsible for food and seed distribution, and there is no way soldiers can work together with MDC officials,” he said.
In October the commander of Zimbabwe’s defence forces, General Constantine Chiwenga was given the responsibility of identifying the beneficiaries of agricultural inputs, such as maize seed and fertiliser. There are allegations that the distribution of agricultural inputs now depends on loyalty to Zanu-PF.
In recent weeks Zimbabwe’s state-controlled media have cast Tsvangirai in the same mould as former Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, whose alliance with apartheid South Africa made him one of the most abhorred figures on the African continent. Tsvangirai has been referred to as Zimbabwe’s Laurent Nkunda, a rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Botswana, the region’s fiercest Mugabe critic, has been accused of providing training camps for MDC militias seeking to destabilise Zimbabwe. The Botswana government denies the allegations.
In a recent article on the opinion page of the state-controlled daily newspaper, The Herald, assistant editor Caesar Zvayi stated: “The militias are supposed to embark on acts of banditry to force the state to respond militarily, after which the lionesses in Washington and London would rush to defend their cubs, claiming Zimbabwe threatens regional {www:peace} and security.
“From there, he (Tsvangirai) will claim the AU has failed and should refer the matter to the UN, where he hopes his handlers (Britain and the US) would call the shots to effect the illegal regime change they failed to achieve over the last eight years.”
Zvayi, who was deported from Botswana this year warned ominously: “Tsvangirai would do well to learn from the fate that befell Jonas Savimbi after he withdrew from the presidential run-off that pitted him against the incumbent president, José Eduardo dos Santos, in 1992.”
Savimbi was killed in 2002 during a skirmish with Angolan soldiers. “History, they say, repeats itself,” Zvayi said. “Morgan (Tsvangirai) should be wary of the curse of history.”
