For most of Africa, the electoral tracks are drawn with paints of violence, rigging, lack of transparency and bogus power-sharing agreements. Some say, electoral processes are mostly selections than elections.
So the question is who will drop the baton in the relay race of Africa’s dubious electoral processes and break the chain of electoral irregularities?
Ghana is next in line. The run-up to the election in Ghana has been contentious, after all Ghana has recently discovered oil. Barrels of billions of dollars await the next administration.
Guinea Bissau, Gabon, Angola, Cameroun and Congo, to mention but a few, have all had their show of electoral incongruities.
Zimbabwe continues to slump further and further into an abyss of poverty and disease as the ruling party under the governance of Mugabe, refuses to give up its grip on power despite a power-sharing arrangement.
April last year, Nigeria held one of the continent’s most badly flawed elections. The legitimacy of the incumbent president and several governors are still being challenged in court.
Violence tore through Kenya after the ruling party proclaimed a dubious electoral victory last December, killing several and displacing numerous communities.
The Ivory Coast has yet again postponed its election to 2009, after many others, because of difficulties in compiling a never ending national register.
Now the baton has been passed on to Ghana, but will the budding trend of electoral irregularities, that has given rise to incapable and unaccountable leadership in Africa, be continued?
Will the discovery of oil influence emotions in the aftermath of the elections in this country known for its peaceful elections?
The West African nation goes to the polls, Sunday, to elect a new president and 240 members of parliament.
Democracy is still making progress in Africa and successful elections in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Senegal and Zambia to name a few, have brought hope to Africans.
The need for Ghana, an African forerunner, to break the budding trend of electoral irregularities is of the essence.
