The Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) a non-profit organization that advocates for the promotion of credible elections and participatory democracy on Tuesday urged political parties to refrain from announcing elections results since such acts have the potential to destroy the peace in Ghana
Mr. Khabele Matlosa, Leader of the EISA continental observation mission in Ghana made the statement at a press conference to present the interim findings of the team.
The EISA team made up of 15 members drawn from Civil Society Organizations and 12 other African countries including Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Mozambique, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Zambia are in Ghana to observe the presidential and parliamentary elections.
Mr. Matlosa said: "I am imploring political parties to restrain themselves and allow the Electoral Commission (EC) to do its work and mandate of announcing results. Political parties and the media are not supposed to announce results."
He pointed out that Ghana had a track record of holding successful elections on a continent where there is growing disenchantment about the credibility of elections held and urge Ghanaians to continue to comport themselves till the final results are announced by the EC.
"So far the elections have been successful," he said, challenging the EC to maintain its credibility and added that the success of the elections would bring a sense of national pride to all Ghanaians.
Mr. Matlosa further noted that Ghana had been providing a good example on the continent in terms of maintaining constitutional mandates and explained that other African countries try to change the constitution to suit the government in power.
"Unlike other cases on the African continent where the timing of elections is used for political mileage by incumbents, the holding of elections on a predictable date in Ghana should be highly commended. It should serve as best practice for other African countries to emulate."
He said the campaign process was generally calm and orderly but urged the government to consider providing public funding to political parties for election purposes since that will provide a level playing field and strengthen the democratization process in the country.
"Political parties are the backbone of representative democracy. If political parties are institutionally week, democracy may be at serious risk."
Commenting on the voting and counting process, Mr Matlosa said despite some hitches including the late arrival of election materials and the late opening of a very few polling station voting and counting process were smooth.
The observer however, recommended that the EC allocated more polling stations to cater for population density as some polling stations seemed to be overcrowded throughout the voting process while others had shorter queues.
He emphasized that the elections have so far been free and fair and have contributed to the consolidation of the democratic process, peace and stability in Ghana.
"It is our hope that the management and the announcement of results as well as the settlement of potential electoral disputes will also be conducted with the same level of transparency, integrity and responsibility."
He said the EISA team will continue to monitor the process till it came to a logical conclusion.