US threatens visa ban ahead of elections in African state
Washington has announced that it will restrict US visas for people “responsible for undermining” democracy in Ghana. The warning on Monday comes weeks before the West African nation’s presidential and parliamentary elections.
In a statement announcing the visa restriction policy, the US State Department expressed the government’s “commitment to supporting and advancing democracy” in Ghana and around the world.
Ghana has held elections that observers describe as free and fair, allowing the peaceful transfer of power between parties for over three decades. The general election scheduled for December 7 will be the ninth since the country returned to multi-party democracy in 1992.
However, allegations of voter register irregularities ahead of this year’s vote have sparked widespread concern about a potential democratic backlash.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), the main opposition party in Africa’s top gold-producing country, held nationwide protests last month, demanding an independent audit to clean up the electoral roll and ensure credible elections. The group accused the electoral commission of illegally transferring more than 240,000 voters to different voting stations without their consent and removing the names of others.
“The NDC firmly believes these discrepancies reflect systemic issues that undermine the credibility of the voters register and, by extension, the integrity of Ghana’s electoral democracy,” the party stated in a petition to the electoral authority.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed Ghana’s democracy as a “record to be proud of and a model to cherish,” and warned that anyone found to be sabotaging the country’s rule of law, including through rigging elections, would be barred from obtaining American visas.
“The United States’ readiness to impose visa restrictions if circumstances warrant is an example of our support for the aspirations of all Ghanaians for a peaceful, transparent, and credible electoral process that reflects the will of the people,” Blinken stated.
Washington implemented a similar visa restriction policy in the run-up to the Nigerian general election last year, barring entry to those “believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy” in Africa’s most populous country. Late last year, the State Department imposed a visa ban on Zimbabwean officials, citing electoral corruption and human rights violations, including voter and election observer intimidation in the southern African country.
The election in December will pit former President John Dramani Mahama, the NDC’s leader, against the ruling New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) candidate, Mahamudu Bawumia, Ghana’s current vice president. This year marks the end of President Nana Akufo-Addo’s second and final four-year term, as stipulated by the Ghanaian constitution. Akufo-Addo first came to power in 2016 after beating Mahama in elections that year and won again in 2020.
“As we approach the elections, we should never forget that peace is fragile. Like an egg, once it is cracked, it cannot be put together again without the scars showing,” Mahama wrote on X on Monday.
