Democracy exhorts that authority should be vested in the people, so they make decisions on everything under the rule of law. What if the mode or one of the modes of this investment in the people is distorted or corrupted or attacked? Can we always trust the people to make informed and sane decisions? 

Who becomes responsible for protecting the “sane decision” of the public and how is that done?

The press has been traditionally seen as the antidote to the progressive weaknesses of democracy or has it not? It’s as if democratic institutions will not auto-reset; have hardly auto checked but for the intervention of a press; mostly when the perceived problems have fully blown “involving a certain person and state resources”. 

So in our almost three decades of our democratic experiment, big political stories have always been about a big man wasting money. Nothing new but the old democratic problems moving from institution to another committed by different individuals at different times are drivers of national discourse. Maybe the icing or little addition would be the introduction of thugs and violence from time to time.

Indeed the more the Ghanaian press intentionally tries to shine light on other things than pure politics; the more weaknesses of our political institutions are exposed. Even the very trivial things on the scale of development have strong connection to political institution.

What else should the press do? Sometimes it sounds as though the press has the power to douse a burning market, provide basic amenities in your locality, or even arrest and correct the corrupt people and systems we exposed and have failed. 

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has held over 5 press conferences in 72 hours since December 7, 2020; educating, encouraging, singing, chanting and (unfortunately) reporting supposed election irregularities to the public. I will not pretend the NDC as opposition faces a few odds because of state capture; its part of our style of doing democracy since we started. 

But after the 2012 petition case, one lesson was really drummed home. Evidence. Elections are won at the polling stations (because of evidence available). So I find it difficult to understand why a national executive of the NDC will throw jabs at the credibility of the media for carrying out projections. 

The smartest service the NDC could have done for this anxious swing public (not party people) was to give us a sense of what they have been counting too; the mathematics, the figures, statistics and projections to confuse us at least. Adjectives don’t win elections, numbers do.

That is why the most equipped press have intentionally tried to bring all the numbers and pictures in the 2020 reportage. The projections are actually a small part of the entire work done in the various situation/production rooms. 

The loud narrative should have been that the NDC’s transparent strong room or/and pro-NDC media have counted and statistically projected attractive figures or data showing a certain pattern but nay. 

The public helped the NDC but NDC couldn't protect its ballot.

Can you imagine what it would look like if John Mahama came through with statistics in his last address? 

If you ask me, the media has done fantastic in the last four years; amidst the deaths, death threats, harassment, subtle censorship, political divisions, poor welfare, job losses, they (we) have helped the public achieve minimum competence. Unfortunately, the public, especially the NDC hasn’t shown faith and played their role so well.

While we wait for the NDC to provide more insights on these issues, it is important they attempt to remedy some problems as soon as they can.

Perception & Public Opinion. I heard perception in politics is everything and that Governments pay attention to public opinion. Even the most oppressive tyrants want to know what the public is thinking, even if it’s just to oppress them more effectively. I think the alternative government should pay more attention to these variables.

Scientifically, the NDC should attempt to measure the honesty of the 2020 elections, their role in the outcome from the perspective of the people using other formal and informal approaches besides elections. It would be simplistic to assume the stunning performance in the elections is enough because nobody goes into a competition to lose.

Media and Communication. Ghanaians may have a short memory but not the Ghanaian media.

The NDC has to carefully review it’s communication methods; the job is bigger than sweet-talking and this should be preceded by a thorough examination of this area from 2016 because you also want to understand why the “Changing Lives Transforming Ghana” message failed to tip.

The Ghanaian people love their radio and TV. This relationship can only be encouraged so negative criticism of the media is most likely suicidal. Just respect the free press; there’s no cabal against any regime or party.

Generally speaking, between 2012 and 2020, and between the two big parties, the  NDC has lot more do with Who says What, When, Where and How.

What about the Electoral Commission? 

The research suggested above should give us a sense of what the public makes of the EC’s conduct of the election. As for the errors in their (EC) communication of the Election results, it is embarrassing, especially imagining some media platforms got their arithmetic better than the most empowered institution in this exercise but that cannot be another string for the NDC to hang onto.  

The New Patriotic Party, (NPP) may have lost a lot of elephants in parliament, Akufo-Addo’s popularity may have shrugged a bit comparing 2016 figures (NPP, 53.85% to 44.40 of the NDC) to 2020’s ( NPP, 51.36% to 47.36% of the NDC) but the NPP took it’s homework more seriously; protecting their ballots. If it were boxing, this would be a clear technical knockout! 

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The author of this piece is the Producer for the Touch of Class and Class Drive on Class 91.3Fm.