Posted by 
The Director of Elections for the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Evans Nimako has expressed his disagreement with some assertions made by the former Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan.
At a Constitution Day Public Lecture on Monday, Dr Afari-Gyan pointed out that there was a disturbing trend of election losers alleging manipulation and refusing to accept results.
This, he suggested, could be a result of the failure to instill democratic principles widely across society.
Dr Afari-Gyan thus suggested the imposition of sanctions for election petitions that do not succeed in court to prevent their proliferation and ensure they are not used merely to satisfy financiers and supporters.
“…To prevent the rush to court with improbable election petitions from becoming a fashion, I suggest that election petitions that do not succeed should attract punitive sanctions,”he proposed.
Reacting to this statement on JoyNews’ PM Express, Mr Nimako said considering such a proposal would constitute ‘gagging’ of political parties and candidates.
According to him, the window of election petitions has been provided to ensure that candidates who have grievances get their “justice”.
“I think that the court has its way of awarding damages to people who have come before it,” he told host Aisha Ibrahim on Wednesday.
On the same show, the Director of Legal Affairs for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Edudzi Tamakloe also disagreed with Dr Afari-Gyan’s comment.
He noted that only two out of eight elections held since the inception of the Fourth Republic have been addressed at the Supreme Court.
A feat, he believed, ought to be applauded.
“May we not take the peace we have in this country for granted. Now if you have a situation where you’ve had eight elections and only two have been challenged in the Apex Court, I think as a people we rather should be applauding ourselves for it,” he said.
He argued that punishing petitioners appearing before the Supreme Court for presidential elections would discourage them from using the judicial process.
He expressed concern that such a policy might lead to protests in the streets as an alternative means of expressing dissatisfaction.
He further stated that the 1992 Constitution is founded on the premise that Ghanaians should be encouraged to defend it.
