Ghana’s democracy fragile: it must be protected …IDEG cautions

Dr Manyo speaking at the event

Ghana’s electoral system, despite the successful exchange of power in the past years, is still not immune to external interference, the Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG) Ghana, has cautioned.

It has therefore called on the government to safeguard the process and ensure it is strong enough to resist any form of interference ahead of the upcoming 2024 general elections.

This came to light at a training workshop for the media and other stakeholders in Accra on Thursday on managing the risk of election interference in Ghana’s election 2024.

According to the Civil Society Organisation (CSO), in a report presented by a Research Fellow at IDEG, Dr Joyce Manyo, the country’s democracy was fragile and must be protected.

Dr Manyo stated that recent developments in Africa showed that election interference was real, providing several reasons for the development.

She said IDEG observed following a recent research that Ghana was weak hence the need to take steps as a matter of urgency towards countering any possible interference to protect the country.

To help reduce instances of such interferences in Ghana, she said the Cyber Security Authority (CSA) needed to issue tighter cyber security guidelines and undertake public education on guidelines.

In addition, she said, comprehensive training for individuals and organisations on how to recognise and reject misinformation and any form of interfering tools was also crucial.

She said, political parties and politicians must also be transparent about funding.

Contributing, a Political Security Expert and Head of the Political Science Department at the University of Ghana Legon, Prof. Seidu Alidu said, Ghana’s relatively insecure online communication structure, inadequate counter-disinformation capacity, unencrypted methods for checking voter’s data and the manual tabulation of electoral data among others puts the country at the risk of political interference.

He said the government needed to take such matters seriously and provide lasting solutions.

By Michael D. Abayateye