The Director of Advocacy and Policy Engagement of the Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana), Dr Kojo Asante, has urged political parties and groups unhappy with the Electoral Commission’s (EC’s) decision to compile a new voters’ register for the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections to use laid down constitutional processes to have their issues resolved.
“I urge persons who disagree with the EC to resort to the court for redress since the more substantive matter has to do with the compilation of the new voters’ register, the ongoing issue with the EC we’ve all had our say for months but the EC has still insisted that it wants to go ahead and compile the register in spite of concerns that have been raised,” he stressed.
Speaking in a video posted by CDD-Ghana, Dr Asante noted that if there were issues with compilation, there were options which included going to court particularly if the actions were unlawful, and already the National Democratic Congress has gone to court.
He added that it was about the lawfulness of EC refusing to use voter ID cards for people to identify themselves during the registration, and there were already processes in place and people should respect the courts to give a ruling to move forward.
Dr Asante cautioned the citizenry to desist from resorting to violence as way of expressing their concerns with EC’s decision because there was no benefit in current contest for anybody to want to go and fight or do anything outside laid down procedures.
“It is completely unnecessary to resort to violence before given mandate to whoever we will choose as our president in January because lawful processes will delay an already encumbered registration processes and some of us already have done our analysis that shows we are really risking the processes.
“This is due to delays that have happened if we want to still compile a new voters’ register, lawful processes will obviously delay but that is much better option,” Dr Asante indicated.
EC’s decision to compile a new voters’ register has been met with mixed reactions from the political front, whereas the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and some opposition parties and civil society organisations are against the decision, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and other political parties have backed the move. -citinewsroom.com
