By P.K Sarpong
A LETTER TO CLARA KASSER-TEE
Dear Clara Beeri Kasser-Tee,
I have spent time walking through a post of yours about the EC and the rather nonconformist attitude you displayed in your piece.
At such a time, an anti-new voters’ register advocate like you and your cohorts should not be seen exhibiting irreconcilable traits in your pronouncements.
While I admit that the crisis of this deadly coronavirus pandemic is not past as we are still battling with it, normalcy, it may take some time, would be our lot to experience.
It is upon this that the EC is looking for ways for us to circumvent a possible constitutional crisis as the continuous existence of the COVID-19 pandemic may throw our election calendar out of gear.
Muddling through your piece, it was a craving of mine to see some practical ideas the EC could have considered in order to enable us go to the polling stations for purposes of electing our president and MPs. You had none in there.
I have this sinister feeling that you didn’t set out to suggest anything concrete for the EC to tap into simply because, apart from being bereft of those ideas, you were also seeking to tell the Jean Mensa-led EC that ‘We Told You So’.
For someone who would want the EC to eat a humble pie knowing that if the Commission would like to change course, it would do so due to the abnormal times we are in but not based on any ideas or arguments you and your colleagues made in the past against the decision to compile a new register, decorum should be the watchword. The fact is, no one anticipated that coronavirus would plague the world for which reason countries and entities would have to revise their notes and strategies.
All that I am saying is that, if the EC would change its mind, it would do so not because of those flimsy, unconvincing and unpersuasive arguments you and those sleepy CSOs put forward but purely on the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stop deluding yourself thinking that a change in strategy by the EC is a vindication of the position you and your friends held and still proclaim.
You emphasized that the elections must take place and that anything short of same would jeopardize our democracy beyond repair. Lawyer, no one benefits from a dead democracy, and for that matter, we all want to protect what we have built over the years as a country.
What is, however, missing in your long thesis is a clear path, a road that has no blockades in ensuring that elections are held without endangering the lives of the people.
You could not dulcify your admonition with any concrete plan the EC should use to sidestep putting the lives of the people in danger in its attempts to protect the continuation of our democracy.
How do you want the EC to do the limited registration exercise? Suggest the methodology taking into account the fact that coronavirus is still lurking in the shadows waiting for people to converge to inflict its wounds on them.
As a lawyer, you know as much as I do that the courts don’t pander to the whims and captives of individuals who petition them on such matters and any other matter for that matter. You cannot blackmail the legal system with your emotive profusions.
Don’t you think you are slighting the legal system by creating the impression that they don’t look at such matters with courage? This should not be coming from a lawyer of your caliber. This is contemptuous, if you ask me. The fact that you do not win a case doesn’t make the court wrong in its judgments. A weak case, oftentimes, brings poor results.
Your lopsided arguments, coupled with your impervious posturing in relation to this new register idea has blindfolded you so much so that you cannot see beyond your nose to witness the dangers that loom ahead in case a limited registration exercise is to be embarked upon.
I ask again, if the EC can undertake a limited registration exercise, what prevents the same EC from compiling a new register?
If I were you, I would just stop the jubilation since the EC has not emphatically stated that it is going to use the old register.
If you care to answer this nagging question, would you recommend we go to the polls if coronavirus stays with us till December this year? Stop superimposing your so-called democracy ideals over the lives of the very people the democracy you talk about is supposed to help!
In effect, lawyer, you rushed with your jubilations. You premised your post on wrong assumptions. Don’t come and disturb us again if you wake up tomorrow to read that we may not hold elections after all since it is not worth endangering people’s lives.
P.K.Sarpong, Whispers from the Corridors of the Thinking Place.
