Opposition parties in the Ghana are questioning the Electoral Commission’s (EC) preparedness for this year’s election.
They are particularly worried about the fact that this year’s election is in November and not December. With less than 10 months to go to the polls, the opposition political parties feel the EC is not pulling it’s weight.
Voter sensitization is their main cause of worry and believe the EC must do more.
Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahene in an interview with Joy News complained about the posture of Commission.
He said “we are being told that there is going to be a limited registration. How are you going to conduct this limited registration?
“Another serious indictment on the EC is that the chairperson herself told the whole world that she was highly convinced that there were 200,000 ghost names in the register. Few Days later she came to tell us that was not her position and that she should be forgiven. These utterances gives grounds to conclude that the EC is not a trust worthy institution,” he said.
The Convention People’s Party’s Nii Armah Akomfrah said his party expected a meeting to be called to enable all stakeholders contribute to towards how to clean the register but this has not been done. He believes the EC is “taking the minority out of the whole process.”
National Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party Murtala Mohammed he has not seen or heard of any concrete measure being taken by the EC with regards to the election.
“I have not heard of any workshop organised with regards to election 2016, especially when we are going to have this elections in November. The EC cannot assume that we have had elections many times and there for this will go smoothly.”
The People’s National Convention on the other hand is of the view that much more needs to be done with regards to the creation of awareness.
The failure to create awareness, Atik Mohammed believes is the reason “we tend to encounter some challenges with our elections. Some of these challenges could be averted in order to have successful elections.
“This should not be seen as an attempt to condemn the EC but to wake it and all other agencies and institutions responsible for educating Ghanaians up to realise that not much has been done,” he said.
Executive director of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Jean Mensah raised similar concerns on Monday.
She told Joy News “there is so much work to be done” and although the EC has put out a timetable, “I am not hearing of voter education.
“I am not sure the EC is collaborating with the NCCE to raise awareness about the election. We need to start engaging in voter education, we only have about eight months to the election and I am not sure we are putting ourselves in place to have a successful election.”
The governing National democratic Congress disagrees. The party said the arguments hold no merit.
Deputy General Secretary of the party, George Lawson said “there is something going on.”
Joy News
