Parties react to extension of limited registration

Doreen Andoh & Salomey Appiah Politics May - 10 - 2016 , 10:03

The Limited Voter Registration (LVR) exercise which ended last Sunday has raised mixed reactions among political parties with regards to the need for an extension.

The 10-day national exercise, which was expected to add some 1.2 million voters to the electoral roll, was primarily intended for Ghanaian citizens who have turned 18 and would-be first-time voters to register.

That would enable them to qualify to vote in the upcoming general election to be held on November 7, 2016.

But while the National Democratic Congress (NDC) does not see the need for an extension of the exercise, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the Progressive Peoples Party (PPP), and the National Democratic Party (NDP) are calling for the extension.

However, the People’s National Convention (PNC) and the Convention People’s Party (CPP) remain indifferent.

NDC

The Director of Elections for the ruling NDC, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, said calls for the extension of the just-ended limited registration exercise must be discarded by the Electoral Commission (EC).

“I think if you give Ghanaians even one month, on the last day you’ll have the same problem. Ghanaians will want to stay and wait till the last day to go and register,” he argued

“The EC, from the outset, had some targets, and we expect that by the close of the day it will come out with a report to confirm whether or not it was able to reach its targets. If indeed they were able to reach their targets then I will urge them to go ahead with their time-table,” he stated, and therefore asked the EC to remain focused and stick to its plans resisting any form of pressure from the public.

According to Mr Ofosu Ampofo, the EC is under pressure to meet all its schedules before the November polls, including exhibition and cleaning of the register, to ensure it has a credible electoral roll before the polls, hence wasting time on one particular process will not benefit them.

He said inasmuch it was relevant to open the process for more to register, timing is also of the essence.

For him, a supposed proposal for a continuous registration put before the various parties to make inputs for consideration would obviously address the inadequacies in the whole process.

NPP

On behalf of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the National Youth Organiser, Mr Sammy Awuku, said the party was of the view that most eligible voters, particularly students on the campuses of tertiary institutions, had been disenfranchised and, therefore, it was constitutionally right to give them another opportunity.

He said many eligible students had been disenfranchised, because even though majority of the targets for the just-ended excise were on the tertiary institution campuses, the EC failed to put in place adequate measures on those campuses to ensure that all eligible voters were given the opportunity to register.

Mr Awuku said the NPP’s checks at the University of Ghana campus established that approximately 7,000 students who were eligible voters had been disenfranchised.

He said according to the party’s checks, similar situations existed on most of the tertiary institution campuses nationwide and that underscored the need to extend the registration period.

With regards to the NPP’s impression about the exercise, Mr Awuku said the whole exercise was poorly conducted.

CPP

The Convention People’s Party’s Natinal Chairman, Professor Edmund N. Delle, said the party had no objection to an extension of the exercise, because the party believed that no one should be disenfranchised.

“Whatever be the case, does the EC have the necessary funds to extend the exercise? If yes, then why not, let there be an immediate extension without hesitation,” he added.

However, Prof Delle said if the EC did not have enough funds then the nation should rethink the whole exercise.

PPP

The 2012 running mate to Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom and currently the PPP’s parliamentary candidate for Klottey Korle, Ms Eva Lokko, said the PPP valued the need for an extension of the limited registration exercise.

She said the PPP had realised that most people had been disenfranchised because public awareness of the exercise did not go down well, particularly in the rural areas.

“We also realised that registration centres were not mapped out well to be easily identified. There were people who said it took them three days to find their registration centres,” she added.

Ms Lokko said the difficulty in finding registration centres was a major reason why most people could not register and therefore, the EC had to do its homework well and ensure that no one was disenfranchised.

PNC

The Chairman of the PNC, Mr Bernard Mornah, said the PNC was not seeking an extension of the limited registration exercise since the continuous registration had begun.

“An eligible registrant who could not register could walk into any EC district office and register under the process to get the voters card,” he noted.

Nonetheless, he said there were some issues with the requirement for the registration which disenfranchised some prospective voters.

In Ghana, there was nothing like a citizenship card or a national identification which could show that one was actually a Ghanaian, therefore, one could be denied easily, Mr Mornah said, suggesting that a citizenship card was needed.

NDP

The Director of Communications of the NDP, Mr Ernest Owusu Bempah, said the party expected the EC to extend the registration period because some prospective voters, especially those on the tertiary campuses, were not able to register.

Their inability to register, he said, was because there were either few or no registration centres on the various campuses.