New media creating threats that negatively influence elections – Kojo Asante

• Dr Kojo Asante said the new media has been the tool of circulating false information

• He also said disinformation has been weaponized to discredit democratic institutions to sore societal distrust and attack political candidates

• The West African Election Observer Network (WAEON) was formed in 2010 as an independent

Dr Kojo Asante, Director for

Read full articlePolicy and Advocacy, Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), has said, countries that practice democracy are under threat with the influx of misinformation and disinformation going viral on social media.

According to him, five countries in West Africa were recorded as the most significantly declined nations in terms of democracy, but Ghana still stood out as the most democratic nation in the sub-region.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of a two-day workshop on ‘Enhancing the capacity of Democratic Election Observer Groups to address the challenge of Electoral Dis/Misinformation' in Accra, Asante stated that a key feature of the decline in democracy ratings can be attributed to the conduct of elections held in the sub-region, with a widespread of irregular information.

“There is a growing distrust in the independence neutrality and impartiality of election management bodies. Out of the nine and so elections which include parliamentary and presidential elections organized within the sub-region one can say that only Liberia passed on without any significant challenges. Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Ghana, Togo and the special cases of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger all suffered major problems.

“Indeed, these backslide into the dark days of authoritarian rule, human right abuse among others are now complicated by the explosion of new technology and new media creating new threats of misinformation and disinformation deployed to negatively influence elections,” he explained at the programme organized by the West African Election Observer Network (WAEON).

He further stated that, ICTs pose difficult challenges for electoral integrity despite how good and sophisticated it is in working.

“In recent years, foreign governments have used social media and the internet to interfere in elections around the globe. Disinformation has been weaponized to discredit democratic institutions to sore societal distrust and attack political candidates. Social Media has proved a useful tool for the extremist group to send messages of hate and to incite violence,” he added.

WAEON seeks to support its member organizations to identify and advance best practices for election observation to promote democratic elections in West Africa.

WAEON was formed in 2010 as an independent, non-partisan, non-governmental and non-religious network of election observation/monitoring citizen organizations in West Africa dedicated to the promotion of free, fair, transparent and peaceful elections in the sub-region.