CDD-Ghana Fellow Dr John Osae-Kwapong says partisan appointments to independent constitutional bodies will persist unless meaningful institutional reforms break the pattern.
Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express on Tuesday, he said both the NDC and NPP had questioned such appointments, only for the cycle to continue when power changed hands.
“Both parties – NDC and NPP – have had opportunities to express a view about openly partisan persons being appointed to certain institutions, but we see this cycle being repeated, through the rotation and election turnovers.”
His comments follow President John Mahama’s swearing-in of Emelia Afi Agbenyo and Dr Joseph Kwaku Asamoah as EC Deputy Chairpersons on Monday, October 12.
They fill vacancies left by Dr Bossman Eric Asare and Samuel Tettey. Mahama charged them with upholding impartiality and prioritising the national interest.
Dr Osae-Kwapong illustrated his concern with an exchange he had with a partisan friend earlier that day. He had asked what the biggest lesson was.
“Her response to me was that this tells us that whenever we have the chance, we should pack independent Constitutional bodies with partisans,” he said.
For him, that response exposed why the practice keeps recurring. He warned that “this is not a cycle that is going to be broken any soon” without meaningful institutional reforms.
Asked whether the latest appointment damaged the EC’s credibility, Dr Osae-Kwapong said it did little to rebuild public confidence.
“So for an institution that is already struggling in the eyes of the public, you mentioned the Afrobarometer on the question of trust. I feel like this doesn’t help to restore that kind of trust, that the institution itself really needs to build back up.”
He also drew attention to the distinction between private political sympathies and publicly demonstrated partisanship.
A person appointed to the EC could privately hold partisan views, Dr Osae-Kwapong observed.
“The public discomfort arose when someone openly associated with a party entered an institution whose independence was already under scrutiny,” he stated.
That concern, he added, came “at a time when that institution is struggling to have the fullest confidence of the Ghanaian public.”