Sunday, October 19, 2008

UNPUBLISHED, SUBMITTED, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2008

A Labour Consultant, Mr Austin Gamey, has advocated a mandatory mediation programme for particularly the dominant political parties as a way of dealing with violence and tension that has characterised some of their political campaigns and activities.
He said one disappointment for him, since intense political campaigns started with some reported cases of violence was the fact that most Ghanaians merely talked about the violence without offering solutions.
He was sure that if political parties will commit themselves to the mediation process, there will be no more cases of violence till the voting day and that will also pass peacefully.
Mediation is a non-confrontational method of resolving conflicts and disagreements among parties and is being applied in some cases at the courts.
Mr Gamey was sure that given the opportunity and the commitment by political parties, the association of mediators and arbitrators in Ghana, could in less than a month take some leaders and supporters of political parties through a process of sensitisation.
This would include sensitising them to chose various alternative actions for reform and transformation from violent acts to peaceful ones, sensitising them on various scenarios that could bring about peace or violence and appropriate acts to take and sensitising them on how “to use language to engage in conversations” for peace as well as the consequence of the misuse of language.
Mr Gamey was of the view that it was still possible for political parties to undertake this exercise, despite the fact that it was just about two months and some weeks to the election.
He said the country could be divided into about four or five zones then the mediation programme would be done within a week in each zone for the identified political leadership and some supporters.
He said after the programme of mediation which would be transformational, participants would pass on the transformation to others in their constituencies and that would trickle down to affect the attitudes of all.
Mr Gamey also proposed that the Electoral Commission and non-governmental organisations could together put together a mediation programme for all political parties to guarantee peace prior to and during the elections.

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