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Topic Discussion II
Building Public Trust
Elections & Legislatures
Room 1
(2 of 21 pages)
Chair: Welcome ladies and gentlemen. I think we should probably start.
It is nice to see you. My name is Ross Reed and I am your moderator for this morning. I am a former member of the
Canadian parliament. I am a former Minister in the Canadian Government, and I am a former Secretary General of
my party. I have worked with the National Democratic Institute in 17 countries over the last five years in Europe,
Asia and Africa.
What I would like to do first is a couple of housekeeping things if I may. I suggest because there are no loud
speakers you may find it easier to use your headsets at all times. Because of that it is absolutely essential that
you use the microphone. You may find me standing up and waving my hands or somebody next to you pointing but please
we cannot have a translation if we don't use the microphones.
My job this morning is to act as your moderator. That means that I will try and ensure that we have everybody who
is a participant in this meeting will have the opportunity to speak. I will also make sure that we stay on the
topic.
This discussion this morning is specifically about credibility of our democratic institutions, most especially
elections and legislatures. I hope that the discussion that we have can deal with some of the specific things that
you have seen in your countries that have brought greater participation and greater legitimacy of these institutions.
Elections and legislatures are where our people come in direct contact with those that govern us. In some cases
it has been more effective than others have. I hope that you can share with us some of the successes that you have
had.
In that regard I would like to ask in the beginning for a contribution from two of our colleagues. The first is
Mrs. Grace Coleman who is a member of the Parliament in Ghana, who has been very active on behalf of her constituents
and who has been very active with women, and on behalf of women in Ghana and who has proven herself as a leader
in that parliament and within her party. I can say in this case my old friend Grace, Grace and I have know each
other for two years, I would ask her if she would please begin.
Mrs. Grace Coleman: Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator, if I should call you that or the Chairman of the
group. Thank you. Mr. Chairman because of the time constraints I have decided not to read my script by rather to
go by points if you don't mind and I assume we can be within the time.
The topic is gain in public trusts, elections, governments and communications. Mr. Chairman before I talk about
this topic, let me draw attention to where the major democracies are coming from and Ghana being one of those democracies.
We are coming from a period of long years of colonization; we are coming from a time where there was only one party.
We are coming from the points of the cold war and we are coming from massive corruption in official circles. Strangulated
national economies. Then we went into IMF World Bank structure adjustments with its estrangement policies and loss
of jobs. We are coming from economic recovery programs. We are coming from a state of object poverty. Very important,
we are coming from a time when women were completely marginalized, in some cases no education and no voice in government
at all. We are coming from persecuted press.
Mr. Chairman, with this background I think we can't expect much. In some cases people are not just skeptical but
very suspicious of any governments. When we go to elections to the present notion of governance is that elections
might be free and fair. There must be transparency in the election system. By transparency I must say that in my
country we want everything so transparent that we can even see the ballot papers so that the ballot boxes should
be about this, where you put the paper in we can see. This is how transparent we want it to be.
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