PARTIES TO ENSURE PEACE PREVAIL (Political Page)

14/04/08
Story: Mary Mensah
Political Parties in the country have pledged to ensure that peace prevail during and after the elections to enable the electorate who holds the political power to exercise their franchise in peace.
They promise to hold peaceful campaigns devoid of insults and abusive language.
The representatives of the four leading parties, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), People’s National Convention (PNC), The Convention People’s Party (CPP) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) made the pledge at a one-day seminar organised for the media in Accra.
They pleged to accept the results in good faith whether they win or lose but indicated however that it must be free and fair.
They also promised to respect all codes of conducts relating to the elections and educating its followers about the do’s and don’ts by living in harmony with one another among others.
The seminar was organised by the Agenda Newspaper in collaboration with the United States Embassy and it was under the theme “Media Practice in Ghana and Efforts towards peaceful and non violence elections in 2008”.
Mr Henry Asante who represented the PNC said peace building takes a long to achieve and once attained should be handled with much care and vigilance.
He said peace is the total absence of tribal, political, ethnic marginalisation and alienation of conflict and other forms of disagreement that may generate into a major conflict.
He said is it is true that Ghana has a country has enjoyed maximum peace for sometime now and have became use to it in such a way that “ we can not afford to lose this peace which has become an envy of other nations”.
Mr Asante indicated that history shows that the PNC has always preached peace and was the first to concede defeat in the in the 1992 elections and congratulated President Jerry Rawlings and this clearly put to rest any move by the NPP to challenge the results in a three man race of Rawlings Kuffour and Mahama.
He said the PNC will commit itself to peace by accepting other views from sister parties be it criticisms or insults without retaliating and by campaigning genuinely devoid of insults and the use of abusive language against its political opponents.
“We will monitor all processes during the elections and will accept the results in good faith whether we win or lose provided it is free and fair”, he said.
On his part, the representative of the NDC, Baba Jamal said his party appreciates efforts that are being made to ensure a peaceful elections come December 2008.
He said for every elections to be peaceful the rules and regulations governing it must be respected and all political parties should play to the to the rules to ensure peaceful elections.
Baba Jamal indicated that the NDC wanted Ghana to grow in peace and democracy and will accept the results provided it was free and fair.
He urged the international community not to wait till elections time before they send in monitors but should monitor all the processes leading to the elections as well.
Dr Nii Moi Thompson who spoke for the CPP said the Electoral Commission has made honest mistakes in the past elections where there has been errors in the collation of results and urged them to correct those mistakes to ensure a peaceful elections.
He said the CPP is committed to ensuring that the elections are peaceful and called on the media to be circumspect in their reportage because they have matured.