EC convenes IPAC meeting over voters register demands
The Electoral Commission (EC), is calling for an emergency Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting tomorrow to deliberate on calls for a new voters register.
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Opposition
The meeting comes on the back of calls by the opposition, New Patriotic Party (NPP), to the EC to compile a new register before the 2016 election.
The NPP is of the opinion that the current register is bloated and not credible for the next general election.
Tomorrow’s IPAC meeting is expected to deliberate on the issue with the political parties, so a common ground is achieved.
The People’s National Convention (PNC) said a new voters register would not necessarily guarantee a free and fair election in 2016.
According to Mr Bernard Monah of the PNC, a new register might still have names of foreigners if adequate measures were not put in place to purge it.
He argued that instead of creating a new register, the EC should aim at rather purging it.
The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has downplayed assertions by the opposition NPP as evidence to back the call for a revision of the voters register.
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The NDC scribe argued that statements by the NPP suggesting that some foreigners vote in the country should not be entertained.
Evidence
“If it is now that they have identified these names, they should go and use the same procedure. The door is not closed and that should not be the reason why we should throw away a credible register, they should go and prove that there are people there who are not there and they will be deleted,” he said.
It will be recalled that at a press conference the NPP on Tuesday called for the compilation of a new voters register to replace the existing one, saying that there was overwhelming evidence that the current register was seriously flawed and bloated.
According to the party, investigations conducted by a team pointed to the fact that there could not be free, fair, transparent and credible elections in the country using the existing register.
In a similar press conference on Wednesday in reaction to NPP press conference the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has stated that it is poised to make meaningful contributions to ensuring further gains in the electoral system.