A National Post-Election Crisis Management Plan Needed

Just a month ago, Ghana went through a traumatic post-election experience. For days, parts of Ghana , especially Accra was riddled with debilitating fear (not guns – thank God!). Now, by God’s overflowing grace, we have a President, Vice President and Parliament! This past weekend, thanksgiving services were held by Muslims and Christians to thank God for bringing us through drama and preserving our country.

With our success, Africa, and indeed the world have hailed Ghana ’s elections as peaceful and credible, a rare example and a model for the continent. It is as if the end justifies the means and how we made it does not matter. It should matter! Without a doubt, the 2008 elections brought into sharper focus, zigzagged cracks in a typical African fault-line – ethnicity/tribe.

Since we survived the elections, do we just push things under the carpet and pretend that nothing almost happened in post-election Ghana ? Do we go into denial about last month’s trauma until 2012, 2016, 2020 when, supported by more rounds of bounteous dizzying prayers, we sail through? Do we pretend that we have healed and thank God with prayers and church services and move on? Not so fast!

Election is the central nervous system of a democracy. In fact, without elections by which citizens choose their preferred representatives, the bedrock of democracy will be lacking. We must therefore work towards getting all phases of our elections right, including and probably especially the post-election phase.

But, was Ghana in a post-election crisis? Yes, big crisis – in as much as a crisis is understood to mean a significant disruption in the nation’s business and psyche that stimulated extensive media coverage. Adrenalin rushed across this land with primal fears and anxieties heightened.

A crisis is like a cancer that eats away in hidden parts. But worst of all, crises come in cycles, waiting to be repeated in future. When we do not learn the lessons from previous crises, we run the risk of being caught unawares again and again with devastating consequences. On the contrary, if adequate investment is made into intelligent crisis planning, the positive pay-off can be immense.

This article seeks to ask for a thorough analysis of the trauma this country survived and to set in motion genuine and sustained efforts to plan for future election cycles in order to avert a Kenya-type disaster. Our mantra in response to the 2008 post-election crisis should be: Never again! We can learn and apply the priceless lessons the elections gifted to Ghana . As we move further away from the experience and exhaust all the thanksgiving services, there is the tendency to forget how we felt and by that, reduce the urgency to plan for the future.

Beyond dependence on divine providence through peace marches, all-night vigils and large group Muslim and Christian prayers at the Independence Square and elsewhere, it should be possible to add well-thought out professional stakeholder crisis management plans that is consolidated into a national crisis management plan to avert or at the least, lessen the impact of negative outcomes of future elections. These plans would kick in during elections to reduce or eliminate surprises and get us in a better state of preparedness.

Among others, crisis management entails imagining worst-case scenarios and identifying plausible strategies and tools to either lessen the impact of the crisis or better still, to eliminate the occurrence of the crisis all together. Once a path is identified, practice is organized with key stakeholders on the ‘how-to’ of implementation.

The bedrock of crisis management is intelligent anticipation and eternal vigilance. It is a smart viable alternative to hopeful melancholic complacency. The 2008 election crisis was a scary near-miss and a frightening close-call. The priceless lessons should therefore be analysed and put to good use in future elections. It is nerve-racking to function in a state of panic and confusion while election tension brews and possibly boils over.

What went wrong? A quick narration of key factors that contributed to the post-election trauma is in order here. The sorry role of the media has received much analysis, probably out of context. But the Electoral Commission and the political leadership of this country (ex-President Kufuor, Nana Akufo-Addo and now President Mills) could have done better and in a timely fashion to lessen the unnecessary distress this country endured.

Political parties want one thing only: to win. Some may not even care by what means they attain the much desired win. In typical fashion, functionaries of the NPP and NDC waged a psychological warfare on Ghana in desperate efforts to win. They were manipulative. They made up and/or exaggerated stories to suit their agenda. Any loss of guard by the media resulted in falsehoods and rumours passing through media gate-keeping into the public domain, neatly or oddly packaged as facts.

For the political parties, the period of uncertainties was a period of war – war of lies, manipulation, cranked-up propaganda and massive scheming. If they had desired, and if they had it in them, they could have for instance, persuaded their supporters not to congregate to heighten tensions and with sincerity, asked them to calm down in a more persuasive manner than the lame rhetoric they disseminated.

Despite the poison planted by the political parties through the media, there were periods when it felt as if there were no elders in this county. No information came through. No elders spoke. Ghana was left to function on auto-pilot as if we were waiting for the tide to turn us in any direction. The silence was loud and deafening, and portended gloom and doom. The lull felt like the calm that comes before the storm.

Despite the unprecedented eerie tension, national leadership – Nana Akufo-Addo and Professor Mills, but especially then President Kufuor were too slow in showing much needed and urgent leadership. President Kufuor should have spoken to the nation much earlier than he did because at that critical point, he was not an NPP but the leader of Ghana . Religious leaders and the National Peace Council were equally slow in speaking peace to Ghana .

During the heated election period, especially prior to the presidential election run-off, I received several telephone calls and text messages from President Kufuor, Nana Akufo-Addo and Prof Mills pleading for my vote apparently for their personal gains. So undoubtedly, the leaders of this country understand the tremendous power of one-on-one communication and especially the pervasive new information technologies. But during the frightening lull, they ignored communication that has the force to speak to the minds and hearts of people.

The Electoral Commission’s unique role: As an outsider looking in, it appeared that the EC managed the communication component of the just-ended elections in a business-as-usual fashion. That worked in the past. Unfortunately, the 2008 elections turned out to be business-unusual and therefore needed a sharper, more alert, responsive, proactive and reactive communication efforts than was provided. But sadly, the EC had no crisis management posture. It casually floated with the tide.

It is troubling to acknowledge that part of the reason our country got on the brink of a melt-down was due to poor communication planning and implementation. For instance, during some of the nail-biting moments when information was needed the most, radio and TV reporters expressed frustration about the unavailability of the EC’s public relations staffers to answer questions. That obviously added to heightening the tension in the country.

No communication in itself communicates a great deal. The absence of communication can confuse, confirm suspicions and reinforce fears. Granted, that some information high-times were in the evenings, after-hours. During crises, communicators do not ‘close’ as long as information consumers remain hungry, waiting to be fed.

Also, rumour management appeared to be non-existent during the post-election period. Factual information is both a balm and a slayer of rumours. Some of the post-election rumours could have been responded to promptly by the EC since they had staff on the ground to investigate. In an environment that is choked with rumours, the best approach is to counter them with unalloyed undistorted facts disseminated by credible sources.

To manage elections, the EC’s communication staffers must therefore be available around the clock, especially throughout the high-tension periods of releasing election results. They must monitor the media to know the nature of rumour life. It should be unacceptable for them to close from work when the nation sits on tenterhooks, awaiting results, and indeed when the mass media hunger for news. Information delayed, in this regard, is tantamount to information denied with needless consequences.

To save this country from a similar, or even a worse ordeal in future elections, the EC needs to proactively develop a crisis communication management plan. They should not assume that all will be well, remembering that Murphy’s Law dictates that ‘everything that can go wrong can go wrong.”

The writer is a communications consultant

dorisdartey@yahoo.com; dorisdartey.blogspot.com