A leading member of the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP), Dr Onsy Kwame Nkrumah, has described the voters’ registration exercise as a call to duty for all patriotic citizens and a national responsibility towards deepening democracy.
He called on stakeholders to work together towards eliminating the possibilities of electoral fraud and build confidence in the electoral system and indicated that the citizenry must all insist that their right to register is adhered to and not hindered during the processes.
Dr Nkrumah admonished all eligible electorate of 18 years and above and of sound mind to present themselves at the various registration centres with the required documents to participate in the exercise.
“The Supreme Court ruling has brought to closure the fight over the compilation of the new voter’s register, and there is no victor nor vanquished, Ghana won and we must all work together to ensure that the electoral laws of the country are not trampled upon by anyone, the defence of the integrity of the electoral system and policing of the whole processes to ensure that no one is disenfranchised.
“Life of the voter must be paramount and, thus, the Electoral Commission (EC) must strictly enforce the COVID-19 preventive measures to protect lives and the commission must strengthen its engagement mechanism with all political parties, create the necessary platform to reduce antagonism and eliminate the perception of bidding for any political interest.
“The EC must maintain greater credibility, transparency, accountability, and verifiability in the conduct of elections to enable the citizenry to easily ascertain the authenticity of the outcomes and political parties and civil society organisations must be made aware of the systemic checks and safeguard of the electoral processes and tracking mechanisms to build confidence and integrity in the electoral system,” Dr Nkrumah asserted.
He urged EC officials to be firm and apply the laws, rules and regulations in a uniformed manner devoid of preferential treatment of any political party when the compilation of a new voters’ registration exercise commences from June 30, to August 6, 2020 in accordance with the Constitutional Instrument (C.I) 126. -GNA
