Professor Baffour Agyeman-Duah, a Governance Expert, has asked the government to consider postponement of elections on the assumption that come November the worst of the pandemic manifests.
“As unthinkable events unfold over coronavirus, it will be completely senseless to fulfill constitutional requirement by risking public health, if by October and November we’re seeing fatalities from the virus who will think of stepping out to go and vote? In such a case, I expect all governance institutions to make a decision in the best interest of the nation.
“I can even consider the possibility for elections to either be shifted or postponed depending on the nature of what we’re faced with since there is a certain common sense that you have to apply, I’m not saying we’re going to do that, after all its premature to even speculate that.
“But in the event you’re unable to control it and God forbid, we extend to the levels of New York, Spain, Italy and others are having, it won’t make sense to be holding regular political activities just to fulfill constitutional requirement because the nation is moving into uncharted waters with regards to the virus hence it is important for the Electoral Commission to abort any immediate plans of the compilation of a new voters’ register,” Prof. Agyeman-Duah cautioned.
According to the Electoral Commission (EC), the exercise was initially scheduled for April 18, 2020, but no new date has been announced, we had planned to do the registration on April 18 but because of the pandemic, we can’t do it on the said date, we are observing what is happening around our country and the global issue.
But Sammy Gyamfi, the Director of Communications of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) had insisted that the President was largely driven by political expediency in lifting the lockdown restrictions “prematurely”.
“It is clearly a politically motivated decision, calculated to allow the EC the space to undertake its entrenched and illogical determination to compile a new voters’ register for the 2020 general election and nothing more. -kasapafmonline.com
