Thousands Protest Today Over Voters’ Register In Kumasi(read more)

A number of pro-opposition groups are hitting the streets of the Ashanti Regional Capital, Kumasi today to press home demands for the implementation of some electoral reforms that will rid the voters’ register of ghost names. The demonstration, dubbed “Baamu Yadda” , to wit “we will not agree”, is aimed at getting the EC to validate the voters’ register for the November polls as suggested by the Justice VCRAC Crabbe panel. Convener for the group, David Asante told Citi News the reluctance of the EC to validate voters on the register against the recommendations of its own panel of experts is only a recipe for disaster. “The principal objective of this demonstration is to drum home the need for the Electoral Commission to take the people of Ghana serious. The EC ‘s committee recommended validation and the EC came out publicly to uphold the report of the committee. Most of the political parties who ideally were calling for a new voters’ register accepted the recommendation of the committee only for the EC to do another u-turn to say the committee will not do any validation. “We find it very unhealthy for our democracy especially coming from the body that is mandated to manage our Electoral affairs in this country…We will not agree, EC must clean the voters register through the validation process to present a credible voters register for Ghanaians to have a peaceful election, ” he said. David Asante said they will replicate the exercise across the country, until the EC heeds to their demands. “This is just one of the numerous and countless activities we are going to roll out to compel the Electoral Commission to sit up and do what is acceptable prior to the general elections in November…” Meanwhile the Ashanti regional police command says it has put in place enough security measures to ensure an incident-free exercise. “We have made every necessary arrangement to ensure a successful demonstration tomorrow, that is so far as security is concerned. We have assembled enough men to that particular duty."

Source: citifmonline.com