EC blames political parties for violence at registration centres
The Electoral Commission (EC) says political party representatives are perpetuating violence at some registration centres in the ongoing limited voters registration exercise.
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It has, therefore, asked the police to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of the violence to serve as a deterrent to others and ensure the smooth conduct of the exercise.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, the Director of Administration of the EC, Mr Christian Owusu-Parry, said the violence led to the destruction of the EC’s registration kits and attack on some of its officials at two registration centres in the Ashanti Region.
He said the EC wished that the police would take up the attack on its officials and the destruction of registration materials and deal with the perpetrators.
“If the police take action and arrest the perpetrators and prosecute them, it will serve as a deterrent and we will see very peaceful conduct of the registration exercise,” he said.
The EC started the limited registration exercise on April 28, 2016 to give opportunity to Ghanaians who have turned 18 and others who could not register in the last registration exercise to do so.
The first phase of the exercise ended on Monday, May 2, 2016. The break was to allow the registration officials to rest yesterday and organise themselves for the start of the second and final part of the exercise from today to May 8, 2016.
Blame game
Mr Owusu-Parry said the EC did not receive any formal complaints of accusations and counter-accusations from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) of attempts to stop each other’s supporters from registering.
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But he indicated that such accusations were a matter of concern to the EC, since they could affect the smooth conduct of the exercise.
He explained that the root cause of violence at the registration centres were the accusations and disagreements among the political parties.
Grievance-resolution procedures
Mr Owusu-Parry said the violence recorded at some registration centres could have been avoided if political party representatives had complied with laid-down procedures for resolving grievances.
For instance, he said, anybody who had issues with the eligibility of any applicant would have to pick up a challenge form and file a challenge against that applicant.
Thereafter, the matter would be referred to the District Review Committee to investigate the allegation of ineligibility and advise the commission based on its findings.
“The violence is unfortunate because there are laid-down procedures to follow in resolving grievances at registration centres.
“If people had complied with laid-down procedures, we would not have seen the kind of violence recorded,” he said.
He indicated that an applicant would have to provide a passport, a drivers’ licence, a national ID card or an existing voters ID card for identification to enable that person to register.
“Anybody who does not have any of these identification documents will have to get two people to sign the guarantor’s forms on his or her behalf,” he said.
Minor challenges
Mr Owusu-Parry said on the first day of the exercise on April 28, 2016, the EC noticed that the system date on two of its laptops at two registration centres in the Ashanti Region were April 27, instead of April 28.
The wrong date was realised after the EC had already printed 31 voters identification (ID) cards.
“There were instances of equipment breakdown at some registration centres,” he said.
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He said the EC had in place back-up equipment which ensured early replacement of breakdown equipment.
“As soon as the equipment breaks down, new kits are sent for the registration to continue,” he said.
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