Mahama wants the electoral commission to work independently.

John Mahama, the ex-president of Ghana has requested the leaders to make sure that institutions like the Electoral Commission and the Judiciary are capable of working confidently similar to the ones of the United States of America. He said that even though the former US President Donald Trump called the electoral institutions to stop counting the votes, they were not afraid of him and they did what they are were supposed to do.

During an interview, on November 8, regarding the US elections, John Mahama said “It is admirable when institutions work in a country. Even though the elections were not going the way of the president and he was calling for a halt in the vote-counting, the institutions just kept on working the way they should.” “That is the kind of operability and strengthening of the institutions we seek in Ghana. Those institutions can work without political influence. I wonder what would have happened if the same thing was happening in Ghana.”

“But we will see how things go, we all need to work so that our institutions like the Electoral Commission, the judiciary, and the institutions that anchor our democracy are strengthened so that it doesn’t matter which government is in place, they offer the right services.”

Mahama also, said, “I don’t want to ascribe anything to it but it looks like anytime power has shifted in the US it has shifted also in Ghana. There is a certain certainty in this world that every four years there is a US election in November and ours in December. I don’t want to speculate but the significance of the choice of a woman as the Vice president, Americans are going to have the first female vice president. We are hoping for the same in Ghana, we have a very capable woman as my running mate.”

The former president insisted that Ghana should learn from the US “We should take a lesson from what has happened in the US. When you have a leader who becomes divisive, there are a lot of doubts about his interest and family interest, he abandons his allies and just pursues a unilateral policy, a time will come when the people will get fed up and will rise against you. So, I guess that Trump’s one-term in office has many lessons for us here in Ghana too.”