Supreme Court order already part of our programme - EC (May 6, 2016)
The Electoral Commission (EC) says
although it is yet to study the Supreme Court ruling that has ordered it to
clean the voters register, it has already put in place a programme that is
dealing with the court’s directive.
“The good thing is that what the
Supreme Court is asking the EC to do is something that we have put in place as
a programme and doing it,” the Deputy Commissioner of the EC in charge of
Corporate and General Services, Ms Georgina Opoku Amankwaa, told the media in
reaction to the court’s ruling.
She, however, said “the EC is yet to
get a copy of the judgement, study it and see what is in there” before it could
respond.
The Supreme Court, in a ruling
yesterday, ordered the EC to delete the names of persons who were registered
unconstitutionally in 2012 from the voters register.
The ruling could mean that all
persons who registered to vote in the 2012 elections with National Health
Insurance Scheme (NHIS) cards will have their names deleted.
Also to be deleted from the register
are the names of deceased persons and minors.
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The Supreme Court, in a unanimous
decision, however, gave the chance to those who would be disenfranchised due to
the new directive to re-register.
Hitches
Ms Amankwaa was addressing the media
after a closed-door meeting with a team of officials from the East African
Community (EAC) election management bodies from Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania,
Uganda and Rwanda.
The meeting was to explore issues of
mutual interest between the EC and its Eastern African counterparts.
Answering questions from the media,
Ms Amankwaa admitted that there were some hitches in the ongoing limited voters
registration exercise which the EC started on April 28 and expected some 1.2
million people to be added to the electoral roll by May 8.
But she said where the issues
bordered on criminality, the EC was in discussions with the police to prosecute
the culprits to curtail such incidents in the future.
Concerning areas such as the University
of Ghana where potential voters who turned up to register could not do so
because of inadequate registration centres, she said the EC was opening extra
centres to ease the pressure and speed up the registration.
No extension discussed
Asked about a possible extension of
the May 8 closing day for the limited registration, she said the EC had not
discussed the extension of the date, but was quick to add that “after the
exercise, we will look at issues holistically and see if they merit an extension”.
Cleaning register
With the court asking for the
cleaning of the register and some political parties, particularly the New
Patriotic Party (NPP), asking for the validation of the register, the deputy
commissioner said the EC would use the exhibition period to clean the
register.
Tentatively, by its programme, that
exercise has been scheduled for the end of June.
Decision on challenge
There have been media reports that
political party agents are abusing the challenge forms, ostensibly to frustrate
known members of rival parties not to register.
But Ms Amankwaa said the EC’s
decision to undertake an exhibition of the voters register at the end of May
was to give room for committees set up by the commission to handle persons whose
registration had been challenged to do their work.
“The committees are working on the
challenge issues. They will determine whether such challenges should be upheld
or rejected. The work of the committees will inform the EC whether or not to
include the names of those who have been challenged,” she added.
Continuous registration
On the continuous registration of
voters to ensure that people who turn 18 could easily be registered to replace
the limited registration, she said there was an arrangement between the EC and
the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) for that to happen.
She recalled that at its last
meeting, IPAC agreed that the Reform Committee of the EC should take the matter
up and work on the guidelines submitted by the EC, with inputs from the
political parties, a process that she said was ongoing.
Voting day
For the first time, the EC has
decided to bring forward Ghana’s voting day from December 7 to November 7, but
the process is yet to be completed.
On that, Mrs Amankwaa said the EC
had done all it needed to do to ensure that the law was passed and explained
that everything was now in the hands of Parliament and the Council of State, as
the first gazette had been done and the second expected to be done next week.
“For us, whatever we have to do
within our power has been done. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the
elections will take place on November 7,” she said.
More dialogue
The Deputy Secretary General of the
EAC , Mr Charles Njoroge, was full of praise for the EC for its work which he
stated had been grounded on a very strong foundation.
He urged Ghanaians to go into the
elections with peace in mind, as “there is tomorrow and politics is not just
about today”.
While urging countries on the
continent to learn from the EC, he also encouraged the EC to open its doors for
more dialogue.
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