Six
prominent Ghanaians including President John Dramani Mahama have jumped
to the defense of the Electoral Commission over the opposition New
Patriotic Party and its pressure groups’ incessant attacks and needless
pressure on the election management body ahead of the November 7 polls.
Cautioning
functionaries of the NPP and their allies to cease the unjustifiable
harassment of the Commission, the six eminent Ghanaians advised that the
EC must be given space to enable it to independently carry out its
constitutional mandate of conducting elections in the country.
Aside
President Mahama, others who have mounted spirited defense of the
Charlotte Osei-led Commission include a Senior Political Science
lecturer at University of Ghana, Dr Ransford Gyampo; Chief Policy
Analyst at the Ghana Institute for Public Policy Options (GIPPO), Dr.
Charles Wereko Brobby; Chairman of National Peace Council and a member
of the V.C.R.C Committee, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante; former EC
boss and retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice VCRC Crabbe and a
former deputy Commissioner of the EC, David Kangah.
And only
last week, the Inter Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) has also added its
voice with some members expressing their support and satisfaction
towards the EC’s preparations on the limited registration to be held on
the 28th of April to 10th of May.
The latest to give a clean bill
of health to Ghana’s election management body is the Founder of the
Progressive People’s Party (PPP); Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom who has indicated
that he believes the EC will institute the right measures for the 2016
elections.
Even though Dr Nduom conceded that the Commission may
have failed to address some grievances of some political parties and had
been unable to implement all the recommendations of the five-member
panel it (EC) set up to look into calls for a new voter’s register, he
still has faith in the Commission.
Speaking recently on the
matter on Takoradi based Twin City Radio; President John Mahama called
for cessation of what he described as harassment of the EC. “I believe
the Electoral Commission should be left in peace to do its work, this
harassment is not necessary,” the president noted.
He explained
that Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) where all political parties
are represented is the appropriate forum where concerns from various
parties are raised and discussed for a decision to be taken by the EC.
“So
why do we sit in IPAC and confer with the Electoral Commission and our
peers in IPAC and then we come out and do manifestations and other
things and say it is our way or it is the highway. If we don’t have our
way then nobody must have his way, I mean it really doesn’t help
anybody,” Mr Mahama said.
He said he has restrained himself from
getting involved in the argument because as a President, “I’m not
supposed to get involved in these things and interfere in the work of
the Electoral Commission but I do believe that our Electoral Commission
has proved over and over again that it is capable and so let us give it
the peace of mind to be able to deliver a credible elections for us.”
Dr
Ransford Gyampo of University of Ghana shared similar opinion. He
advised Ghanaians to shun the distrust towards the EC and give it the
needed space to concentrate on delivering a credible election come
November 7.
Speaking on Accra-based 3FM, Dr. Gyampo bemoaned the
attitude of some groups towards the EC, “Let us leave the Electoral
Commission to conduct its work otherwise, there cannot be any meaningful
discussion of building and strengthening the institution of State when
everything that the institution does is subjected to unnecessary
scrutiny.”
“The Electoral Commission is an independent body which
has every right to do all these things and it seems we are being too
paranoid about everything that the EC does,” he added.
The
President and Dr Gyampo’s position was in responds to moves by officials
of the NPP and their surrogate pressure groups to unduly pile pressure
on the EC to implement a supposed ‘recommendation’ by the Justice VCRC
Crabbe Committee on validation of Ghana’s voter register.
Party
functionaries, MPs and supporters of the NPP two weeks ago massed up in
the Ashanti regional capital, Kumasi, under the umbrella of LMVCA in a
demonstration dubbed “Baamu Yadda”, to wit “we will not agree”, intended
to force the EC to kowtow to their new demand of “Validation” of the
voter register.
The biggest opposition and its rainbow pressure
group have until recently threatened to block the November polls if the
EC does not yield to their demand to compile a new register for the
impending elections over claims that the present one is irredeemable
incurable.
But they have since abandoned that “project” after a panel
constituted by the EC to investigate their claim of bloated register
shot down their supposed incontrovertible evidence of bloated register.
Convener
for the group, David Asante told the media in Kumasi that, the
reluctance of the EC to validate voters on the register, contradicts the
recommendations of its (EC’s) own panel of experts and it is 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 commission 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, ” Asante forcefully stated.
But, a
founding member of the NPP and Chief Policy Analyst at GIPPO, Dr.
Charles Wereko Brobbey denied of any specific validation exercise
recommended by the Crabbe Committee of Experts.
Dr. Wereko Brobbey
accused the NPP of dishonesty, insisting that some of them have falsely
claimed that the V.C.R.A.C Crabbe Panel recommended validation to be
done using a particular method which they would find more satisfying
He
has therefore cautioned the largest opposition party against
unjustifiably challenging the validity of the voter’s register because
their antics only goes to impede the preparedness of the EC ahead of the
general elections scheduled for November this year.
His position
was supported by a deputy Minister of Communications, Felix Kwakye
Ofosu who wrote on his facebook wall “Fact: Nowhere in the report of the
panel set up to look into claims by the NPP over the voter register was
validation recommended. NPP has been lying throughout this unnecessary
debate over the register.”
Consolidating these positions,
Chairman of National Peace Council and a member of the V.C.R.C
Committee, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante also denied claims that the
five-member panel set up by the EC to look into concerns over the
credibility of the voter register recommended a particular ‘validation’
process.
He told Joy news “I don’t really recall us dwelling on
that term validation, we might have used it”, adding there are several
ways the EC can go about cleaning the register.
He continued
that, “My understanding of the whole thing is that we want to make sure
that the names that are in there are supposed to be there and peoples
whose names should not be in there are deleted.”
To ensure a
clean voters' register, Rev. Asante said there will be the need for a
"proper voter exhibition" adding the Committee has suggested to the EC
to extend the voter exhibition exercise to at least a week to enable
Ghanaians crosscheck their names.
This position of the committee
of experts was earlier stated by Chairman of the Committee, Justice
VCRC Crabbe on GTV’s Talking Point and supported by former deputy
Chairman of the Commission and now, a member of the Council of State,
David Kangah.
Meanwhile, some members of the Inter Party Advisory
Committee (IPAC) have also indicated their support and satisfaction
towards the EC’s preparations on the limited registration exercise.
Two
opposition political parties, the Convention Peoples Party and the
Progressive Peoples Party together with the ruling NDC say they are
satisfy with the EC’s preparedness towards this month’s limited
registration exercise.
The CPP’s Director of Election, James
Kwabena Bomfeh told journalist after an Inter Party Advisory Committee
meeting in Accra last week that, the meeting was satisfactory, but was
not pleased with calls by some political parties for voter’s register
validation, adding that he was not happy because the issue never came up
for discussion.
Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, the NDC Director of Elections,
said the party is happy with Electoral Commission’s preparation towards
the limited registration.
He said the NDC party suggested the EC
should collaborate with the birth and death registry to get documents
on those who are no more living with us (dead) so their names could be
deleted from the register. He also confirmed that the issue of
validation has never come up at any IPAC meeting
On his part,
PPP’s National Chairman, Allotey Brew Hammond said the PPP is ready for
the limited voters’ registration and had wanted the EC to use the
National Identification Authority database to prune the voters’ register
of minors, but their advice was not taken by the EC and now time is far
spent for that exercise.
His position was supported by founder
of his party, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom who said “The day I say that I have
no confidence in the EC that is the day I give up being part of the
political process. So, I can only keep my hopes alive,” he told Emefa
Apawu on Class FM’s 505 news programme, Friday April 15.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment