At the 2024 first quarter meeting with political parties under the Political Party Trust Building Programme in Accra on 21st February, 2024, the Peace Council urged political parties and their leaders to commit to peace and the prevention of electoral violence as well as peaceful electioneering campaign.

The meeting, which was aimed at building a national consensus for peaceful elections in 2024, brought together representatives of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP), the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG), the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Ghana Union Movement (GUM).

Rev. Dr Adu-Gyamfi further announced the Peace Council’s plan to organize some “strategic activities and interventions” to engage political parties, the Electoral Commission, security agencies and other governance and election stakeholders to work together to prevent, particularly, election-related violence. He said the council would continue to engage the political parties beyond the planned quarterly meetings.

OPENING STATEMENT BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL PEACE COUNCIL AT THE 2024 FIRST QUARTER MEETING WITH POLITICAL PARTIES UNDER THE POLITICAL PARTY TRUST BUILDING PROGRAMME

Eminent Members of the National Peace Council
The Chairmen and Functional Executives of Political Parties present here
Partners of the National Peace Council
Friends of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of the Governing Board and Management of the National Peace Council, I welcome all of you to today’s Political Party Trust Building Programme. This is our first meeting in 2024 and we are grateful that you have all made it.
The National Peace Council appreciates the corporation it has enjoyed from all political parties since its establishment and more importantly since the Ada Dialogue in June / July 2021. The Council again, wishes to appreciate all state and non-state actors for the various support roles you played to enable the return of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to IPAC. We have observed that the NDC after their pledge in Peduase have lived up to their word by attending IPAC meetings and we would like to commend them for that.
As the 2024 election year approaches, we would like to use this opportunity to outline some of the plans and activities we intend to roll out during the year. The National Peace Council will continue to work as a state institution mandated by law to facilitate the development of mechanisms to prevent, manage, and resolve conflicts and to build sustainable peace in Ghana. In line with this, the NPC will organize some strategic activities and interventions to engage political parties, the Electoral Commission, security agencies and other governance and election stakeholders to work together to prevent particularly election related violence.
The goal of the Council this year is to have an election that is peaceful and an outcome that is acceptable to all stakeholders. To achieve this the Council will continue to engage the political parties beyond the planned quarterly meetings. We have observed that when a party’s internal structures work well, it impacts positively on the general governance system of the country. For this reason, the Council will continue to roll out training programmes in a couple of days to build the capacity of both National and Regional Executives of the Political Parties to enable them address intra and inter-party conflicts that may arise. The NPC has already started this programme in the five Northern regions. The next phase of the programme will be in six regions namely Ashanti, Bono East, Central, Eastern, Greater Accra, and Volta Regions and it will be crowned at the National Level. There are also plans to cover all the other five remaining regions in the second quarter of the year.
Ladies and gentlemen, as part of our preparation towards the December elections, the NPC will facilitate a platform for all political parties and their leaders to commit to peace and prevention of electoral violence as well as peaceful electioneering campaign at a public forum soon.
The Council plans to embark on a nationwide advocacy campaign against electoral violence and will focus on eliminating the reemergence of the activities of political vigilantism. To achieve this the Council will sensitize citizens, particularly youth groups within the political space on the Guidelines on Hate Speech and Other Forms of Indecent Language, the Vigilantism and Related Offences Act 2019, (Act 999) and the need for political tolerance.
The Council with your input and commitment will continue its advocacy with the judiciary to establish a mechanism that will help address parliamentary election petitions in a manner that will be timely and if possible, to have all parliamentary election petitions addressed within a 42-day period as has been established for presidential election petitions. This is to create an inclusive and a just process for peaceful outcomes.
In partnership with civil society groups and other state institutions such as the NCCE and WANEP, the Council will activate its early warning systems soon to collect data for analysis to enable early response to any critical emerging issues.
Through the same partnership, the Council will establish the election Situation Room during the voting and results collation period to receive data and analyze them for strategic interventions and responses to any critical concerns. The situation room will be available to the political parties, international election observers, and other critical stakeholders as the first point of contact on any issue that may need attention in relation to the elections, during voting, results collation, and declaration by the Electoral Commission.
At this meeting we hope to adopt the outcomes and recommendations of the Peduase Stock taking conference, review the Code of Conduct on vigilantism and the Guidelines on Intemperate Language as we urge closer to the general elections.
We assure all political parties that the Council’s doors are always open for engagement and wish to appeal to all parties to sustain the collaboration and cooperation we have established so that together we can achieve a peaceful election and a democracy that will be sustainable.
We would like to express our gratitude to the USAID/IRI for the support they have given us for the organization of today’s meeting.
Welcome once again and let us all freely share in today’s meeting to help build a peaceful Ghana.
Thank you.
Dated: 21st February 2024