Nonviolent Resistance to Peaceful Election Outcome in Ghana (December 7, 2020)

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By: Adu-Twum Sadiq & Issifu Abdul Karim

It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to consecrate himself to the obliteration of any, even the enormous wrong. But he may still properly have other concerns to engage him. Nonetheless, it is his duty to avoid any destruction, but use what ‘Ghandi’ calls “Ahimsa” – Nonviolent love. Element of violence has always been when a section of the society feels deprived of their basic needs/rights and identity, and this many view as a just cause to protest either violently or nonviolently, but the latter is what peace practitioners advocate. The sign of ‘peace’ at the world stage is so unclear, giving the ongoing fuse between the United States (US) and Iran either using the new media in threatening, notably by president Trump, or attacking installation within nations allied to the US. For instance, many international relations experts, including Dr Vladmir Danso have warned Ghana to intensify its internal security and be very strategic in contributing to global security peace as is a host of a US Base in the country.

Traditionally, when conflicts are resolved by violence, they simply involve the triumph of one protagonist over the other. Such a resolution may occur via threat (boot for boot), persuasion or compulsion by naked force such as what Ghana witnessed during the Ayawaso by-election in January 2019. The presumption yardstick is that one side wins and the other side lose: what the economics of war referred to as “zero sum game or power”. Such phenomena should not degenerate into violence, though Africa elections have always been greeted with violence as a result of ill will and manipulations by the election supervising authority or regime control. Tactics such as disenfranchisement, blind transparency, security intimidation and suppressed inter/multi-party among others have been used in most African elections by the incumbent government or the electoral commission, leading to armed conflicts. Against this background, the Ghanaian populace demands a transparent, free, fair and credible elections to be organized by the electoral commission of Ghana in December 7, 2020. Also, the Ghanaian government through the state security agencies has the responsibility to protect citizens and provide an enabling environment – without interference – for the electoral commission to operate as an independent body.

However, in the occasion where the electoral commission, the government or opposition fails to deliver what is expected of them for peace to prevail, the Ghanaian people must apply nonviolent resistance to express their grievances and not resort to armed confrontation. Nonviolent resistance is an organized popular resistance to government authority which – either consciously or by necessity – eschews the use of weapons of modern warfare. It as an application of unarmed civilian power using nonviolent methods such as protests, strikes, boycotts, and demonstrations, without using or threatening physical harm against the opponent. Other methods include symbolic protests, political and social non-cooperation, and nonviolent intervention – that individuals and groups have used to mobilize publics to oppose or support different policies, to delegitimize adversaries, and to remove or restrict adversaries’ sources of power. Nonviolent resistance has become a strategy for sociopolitical change, especially in undemocratic and authoritarian regimes, and has proven to be more effective than the violent method. For instance, “between 1900 and 2006, nonviolent resistance campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.” (Chenoweth & Stephan, 2011:7). Celestino and Gleditsch (2013) adds that nonviolent conflict is much more likely to lead to subsequent transitions to democracy than violent conflict tactics.

It is important to apply nonviolent campaigns because it does not only provide recognition and somewhat legitimacy to the grievances of protesters, or provide greater internal and external support/sympathy, but it also undermines regime’s main sources of political, economic, and even military power. Conversely, adopting armed resistance in the December 2020 elections will produce detrimental costs, such as lack of mass participation, low international and local support/sympathy, and the regime can justify its repression against the protesters. Evidence about the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance can be gathered from Burkina Faso, Sudan, Tunisia and Egypt among others. With this nonviolent alternative in place, security peace is more likely to attain in the December 2020 elections in case of any contingency.

References

Celestino, M. R., and Gleditsch, K. S. (2013). Fresh carnations or all thorn, no rose? Nonviolent campaigns and transitions in autocracies. Journal of Peace Research, 50(3), pp. 385-400.

Chenoweth, E., and Stephan, M. J. (2011). Why civil resistance works: The strategic logic of nonviolent conflict. New York, Columbia University Press.

 

Writers: Adu-Twum Sadiq & Issifu Abdul Karim (West Africa Peace Ambassadors Network).

Election 2020 Uniting with the Enemy: A Nonviolence Approach to Peace in Ghana (Part 1)

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By Adu-Twum Sadiq (WAPAN PRO)

Elections continue to be the key criterion in the practice of democracy across advanced and the democratization process of most developing nations and Ghana is not an exception. Though elections are not an end in itself, it continually remains a means to an end because it provides the major blueprint for democracies to thrive.

Elections promote democratic peace and reduce the possibility of democratic reversal, allow the completion of the elites and provide the platform for the public to participate in the selection of leaders. Over the years Ghana has witnessed seven successive transfer of power through elections since 1992.

However, these elections have had their drawbacks with 2016 general elections dividing the country without providing clear indication of where Ghana was going, alas! It was peaceful with pockets of violence here and there. One may ask, is election, a do or die affair? But much of human world is structured by violence considering the international political and military system perhaps most of all.

Notably, the destructive patterns whereby people or states interact violently with one another are also reflected in the destructive style that characterizes so much of the interaction of people with the environment: burning of rain forests, clear-cutting of trees, the gouging of the earth during strip mining and the pollution of the water and air etc. This gives the indication of the violent nature of man.

However, elections are about exercising of one’s franchise and the opportunity to participate in the process of electing a leader democratically and this should be done non-violently.

Nonviolence is not limited to tactics for overcoming any one oppressive system whether colonial dominance or denial of civil rights but rather it seeks to overthrow all relationships based on violence, oppression, and the unfair domination of some by others. Thus nonviolence is directly relevant not only to the prevention of war but also establishes social justices, environmental protection, and securing of human right.

The two giant political parties in Ghana, i.e. National Democratic Congress  (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) must therefore rise to the occasion of using nonviolence means in the 2020 general elections to ensure the sustainability of Ghana, peace as described by security expert as `negative peace’.

Many countries in Africa such as Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Burundi, Niger, Senegal and Ivory Coast, Togo, Sudan, Seychelles, Namibia and the Comoros will go into elections in 2020. Nonviolence has emerged as a definite, defiant, hard-headed strategy of social transformation.

Political activist generally are prone to make compromises with violence, convinced their vision of the world-as-it-should-be justifies virtually any means to attaining it. But even ideologies of dictators such as Somoza of Nicaragua, Marcos of the Philippines, Chun doo Hwan in the South Korea, Pinochet in Chile and Botha in South Africa saw the need to unite with their enemies to achieve good ends in the interest of presumed greater good, and that is what Ghanaians expect President Nana Addo and the NDC flag-bearer John Mahama to do — thus uniting with the enemy for a nonviolence elections in 2020.

Adu-Twum Sadiq (WAPAN PRO).