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The National Peace Council (NPC) has called on political parties to avoid hate speech and the use of intemperate language in the 2024 electioneering.

That, it said, would ensure that the country remained peaceful after this year's elections so that the citizenry could go about their businesses without hindrances.

“Our admonition to the political parties is for them to use temperate language in whatever they say to ensure that at the end of the elections, the nation will still be peaceful,” the Board Chairman of the NPC, Rev. Dr Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, said.

Rev. Dr Adu-Gyamfi made the call at the 2024 first quarter meeting with political parties under the Political Party Trust Building Programme in Accra yesterday.

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).

It was organised by the NPC with sponsorship from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), an international non-governmental organisation.

The meeting also adopted the recommendations of the Peduase Stock-Taking Conference held in December 2023.

Key among the recommendations was the need for the Judiciary to expedite action on addressing the issue of time limit in resolving parliamentary election disputes.

“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,” he assured.

He said that would help to create an “inclusive and just process” for peaceful outcomes.

Preparations

Rev. Dr Adu-Gyamfi said: “The goal of the council this year is to have an election that is peaceful and an outcome that is acceptable to all stakeholders”.

As part of preparation towards the December polls, the Board Chairman announced that the Peace Council would facilitate a platform for all political parties and their leaders to commit to peace, the avoidance of electoral violence and a peaceful electioneering at a public forum to be held in the course of the year.

The council, he further explained, had planned to embark on a nationwide advocacy campaign against electoral violence, and would focus on eliminating the re-emergence of the activities of political vigilantism.

To achieve this, he said, the council would sensitise citizens, particularly youth groups within the political space, to 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.