The end product of an election is RESULTS. But getting an authentic and satisfactory results depends on the party’s ability to monitor the process, collate the results, transmit the results, and analysis the results.
Looking at what happened in the last election (2020), it seems the National Democratic Congress (NDC) party focused more on the campaign than the 7th December event. Yes! The campaign strategy was well structured and executed but the finishing was poor.
I guest very useful lessons have been learned, and going into 2024 ‘do or die’ elections, the NDC party leadership will pay more attention to the 7th December events than spending hugely on campaigns.
Before the 2020 elections, I wrote extensively on the qualities of polling agents needed for the election. example; committed party members with HND, degree or masters and at least understand our electoral process. Training of agents must be intensive and last for at least a month.
Poor selection and training of agents, unreliable and ineffective method of transmission of results and lack of vigilance caused us a painfully accepted defeat. A little more effort on the above could have given NDC a clear Victory.
But as the say goes; a man who fights and run live to fight another day with a new strategy. As we advance towards 2024 elections, I wish to suggest the following master plans;
1. The party must Never boycott any IPAC meetings
2. The party must ensure that the EC does the right things going into the elections
3. The party must intensively train committed and highly qualified polling agents. Example degree holders and above
4. The party’s strongroom must be properly organized and equipped with efficient IT tools for results monitoring and collation.
5. the party must establish well equipped regional and constituency collation centres. (Regional and constituency strongrooms). This will help the party monitor and collate it’s results at those levels before comparing it with the EC collated results.
6. Ensure that committed, educated and well-trained polling agents are deployed to polling stations.
7. The party must acquire results collation and transmission tools for polling agents. Example; smartphones, documents scanners etc.
8. Results from polling stations should not be transmitted through TEXT codes. Pictures of polling station results must be taken and send to the constituency strongroom through WhatsApp or any other proper means for comparison and onward transmission to party regional strongroom.
9. The party through it’s agents must not focus on the results of NPP and NDC. Polling station results for all the political parties must be taken seriously and well recorded and collected as such.
10. Agents at the national collation centre should not horribly announce or jubilate even when NDC is in a clear Victory path…
Ghanaians are ready to give us the mandate again in 2024 but we must demonstrate our readiness to save guard their votes. What’s the essence of spending huge sums of money on campaigns if you cannot properly collate your results?
𝑨𝒎𝒂𝒅𝒖 𝑯𝒂𝒅𝒊 (𝑬𝒋𝒖𝒓𝒂-𝑺𝒆𝒌𝒚𝒆𝒅𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒆 C𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒖𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 S𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒚 H𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒇𝒖𝒍)
