The
Inter-Party Resistance Against New Voter Register (IPRAN), has petitioned
former president Jerry John Rawlings to seek his intervention to stop the
Electoral Commission (EC) from compiling a new register ahead of the 2020
elections.
A delegation of the coalition, led by Peoples’
National Convention (PNC) National Chairman, Bernard Mornah, who met the former
president at his office in Accra on Tuesday, said the EC’s “refusal to listen
to wise counsel particularly, from persons who have participated in the
electoral process for a very long time has led to very painful and wrong
decisions”.
The coalition said whilst the EC may have a
mandate to compile a new register, “the mandate must be within reasonable
limits. The mandate of leadership is vested in the people and the Ghanaian
people are saying that apply some economic reasoning.
We are telling
the EC that if it is not broken, do not fix it”.
The PNC Chairman said during the last local
government elections there was a 0.6 failure rate with the use of the existing
biometric equipment and questioned why with such a high-efficiency rate, the
Commission would wish to replace equipment and also do away with 17 million
names in the voter database.
Mr Mornah said civil society organisations had
gone into the market and done an assessment of the features the EC intends to
introduce and realised that the Commission’s budget of $833 million is 60 per
cent above budget.
The IPRAN stating that it was a waste of resources
for the Commission to organise a limited voter registration exercise in 2019
only to turn around a few months later with plans to discard that registration.
The coalition said compiling new voters register
in an election year will come at a huge cost to political parties in terms of
time and resources.
The National Chairman of the National Democratic
Congress, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo also expressed concern about the seeming neglect
of the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) by the current Commission.
He said
Ghana’s democracy had been managed on consensus-building since 1992.
“Unfortunately, under the new Commission
leadership, engagement with IPAC is not part of their agenda,” Mr Ampofo said.
Responding, Mr Rawlings called for patience on
both sides and urged the coalition and the EC not to take entrenched positions.
He urged the
coalition to ensure that eminent personalities and institutions such as the
former presidents, the Commission’s Eminent Advisory Committee and the Council
of State are all informed.
“There is so much mistrust that if we do not
find a way of dealing with some of these issues, they will remain and sour the
atmosphere during the election period. It will keep us very close to an
ignition point which will be very unnecessary.
“This coming election is going to be a truly
serious thing and nobody must take the process for granted or think they can
get away with making the wrong moves.
The steps being taken must be transparent so no one has any doubts about the integrity of the process. Whoever wants to win will necessarily have to win by free and fair means,” former President Rawlings, stated.
-kasapafmonline.com
