On Monday, 12 October 2026, President Mahama swore in two new Deputy Chairpersons of the Electoral Commission, Emelia Afi Agbenyo and Dr Joseph Kwaku Asamoah. They fill the vacancies left by Dr Bossman Eric Asare, who resigned with effect from 31 July, and Samuel Tettey, who retired. At the ceremony, the President told them he expected “no preferential treatment” from the Commission for himself, his party or his government.
Within hours, the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) was on the attack. Its Director of Communications, Dennis Miracles Aboagye, described one of the appointees as an openly partisan operative, a campaign team member of a political party, and said the appointment undermines the independence of the Commission’s leadership. The presidency has answered that she is not, and has never been, a card-bearing member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and that her involvement in campaign activities came from her advocacy for gender inclusion. I have not been able to verify either side’s claim independently. Party membership is a matter of record, and the public deserves a clear answer.
I do not write this article to settle that dispute. I write because what we are watching is older than this appointment, and it will keep happening until we decide that politics needs standards that do not change with the seat a party occupies.
The same argument, in different mouths
Ghanaians have heard this argument before, with the speakers reversed.
In April 2023, the NDC, then in opposition, wrote to the Council of State asking it to reconsider its advice on two appointees to the Electoral Commission under President Akufo-Addo, Hajia Salima Ahmed Tijani and Dr Peter Appiahene. The party described one of them as a card-bearing NPP member and warned that the Commission’s reputation would suffer unless the appointments were reconsidered. The NPP government of the day defended its choices. In 2019, the NDC’s General Secretary went further and accused the then Deputy Chairman, Dr Bossman Asare, of acting as an NPP sympathiser after he spoke publicly in favour of the referendum on the election of district chief executives. The argument then was that a deputy commissioner must act as a neutral referee.
Read those statements today and the roles have simply been exchanged. The NDC now defends an appointee against the charge of partisanship, and the NPP now delivers the speech the NDC once gave. The Director of Communications says an appointment like this has never happened before in our democratic history. The record suggests that both parties have been accused of it, and that both parties have defended it when the accusation was aimed at them.
That pattern should trouble every citizen, whichever party they support.
Why the opposition’s voice changes
There is a simple human explanation. In opposition, a party sees power from the outside. It sees the abuse of appointments, the sidelining of institutions and the quiet rewarding of loyalists, and it speaks about these things with real conviction. Then it wins, and the view changes. The loyalists are now friends who are qualified, the appointments are now reasonable judgement calls, and the critics are now people who are just playing politics.
The reverse is just as common. A party that spent eight years defending its own appointments leaves office and suddenly discovers the virtue of neutrality, independence and clean process. Its principles seem to arrive on the day it loses the keys.
I am not saying politicians are insincere. Many are sincere in both positions, which is exactly the problem. When a principle is held only by those who lack power, it was never a principle. It was a tactic.
Why the Electoral Commission is different
Some will say that all governments appoint people they trust, and that is true. Presidents appoint ministers, ambassadors and board chairs who share their outlook, and nobody is surprised. The Electoral Commission is a different kind of institution, and Article 46 of the Constitution explains why: it states that the Commission shall not be subject to the direction or control of any person or authority in the performance of its functions.
The Commission is the referee of the contest in which the President’s own party competes. A referee does not have to be a person without opinions, but must be someone whom both teams can trust, and the perception of fairness matters almost as much as fairness itself. A losing candidate who believes the referee was on the other side will not accept the result. Ghana has already seen how heated the arguments about electoral credibility can become. We do not need more suspicion built into the system before the next election cycle begins.
This is why the question to ask about any appointment to the Commission is not only whether the person is qualified. It is also whether a reasonable citizen from the other side could look at that person and believe the contest will be fair. If the answer is no, the government has chosen the narrow route when a wider one was available. Dr Asamoah, for example, comes with more than seventeen years of experience across electoral administration, public service, law, accountancy and teaching, including earlier service within the Commission itself. That kind of record is what makes an appointment easier to defend.
What each side owes the country
To the government, I say this: the President’s own words at the swearing-in set the bar. He asked the deputies to be impartial and to protect the right of Ghanaians to choose their leaders freely. That standard applies first to the person who made the appointments. If there is a real doubt about an appointee’s independence, the answer is not to attack the critics. It is to answer the specific allegations openly, publish the evidence of the person’s record, and let the public judge. A government that once complained loudly about partisan appointments to the Commission has more reason than most to hold itself to the standard it demanded.
To the opposition, I say this: your criticism will be taken more seriously if it is consistent. If you believe partisan appointments to the Commission are wrong, then say so about your own past appointments as well. Acknowledge what was said about the appointees under your government and explain what you would do differently. Otherwise, your complaint, however valid in substance, will be dismissed as the temporary anger of those out of office. And let the allegations be accurate. Where a claim is disputed, say what you know, say what you do not, and allow the person concerned to be judged by what she actually does in office.
To both, I say that the accusation “your appointee is a partisan” should never again be a statement whose truth depends on who is speaking.
What would real standards look like?
Standards need to be written down, because memory is too short and convenience too strong. Parliament and the political parties could agree on a plain code for appointments to constitutional bodies such as the Electoral Commission: a stated cooling-off period for people who have held party office or played prominent campaign roles, public disclosure of any party membership or campaign involvement, and a transparent vetting process in which the Council of State publishes its reasoning. None of this requires a constitutional amendment to begin, and all of it can be proposed by a party that is in opposition today and might be in government tomorrow, which is precisely why both parties should want it.
The test is easy to state. Before criticising an appointment, ask what you said when your own side made a similar one. Before defending an appointment, ask what you said when the other side made it. If your answers differ, you do not have a position. You have an interest.
The country that outlasts its parties
Governments change in Ghana, and that is something to be proud of. The NDC and the NPP have each held power and each lost it, and one day each will again. The institutions they pass between are the only things that remain constant, and they stay trusted only if each side leaves them in better shape than it found them.
We should therefore judge the new deputies by what they do. If they act fairly, show restraint and treat every party alike, the doubts will fade. If they do not, the opposition will have been right and the government will have wasted public trust it could ill afford to spend.
Either way, the larger lesson stands. Standards are not seasonal. They do not belong to the party in power or the party in opposition. They belong to the people, and the people are watching who keeps them when keeping them is costly.