Stop cleaning voters' register until... - NPP
The opposition New Patriotic Party has called on the Electoral Commission to immediately stop all processes involved in the internal cleaning of the voters' register.
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According to the party, the cleaning should resume only after all parties are satisfied with the modalities and the means by which the “so-called” internal cleaning was being done.
Addressing a press conference in Accra Thursday morning to respond to the EC’s decision not to compile a new voters’ register, but audit and clean the current one, Mr Peter Mac Manu, Campaign Director of the opposition party, said they were not satisfied with the EC’s responses.
“The NPP hereby serves notice that it is totally dissatisfied with the responses from the EC and reiterates its conviction that only a new credible voters’ register will guarantee us free, fair, transparent elections. And I may add accurate,” Mr Mac Manu said.
The chairperson of the EC, Mrs Charlotte Osei last weekend disclosed on Joy FM's news analysis programme, Newsfile that the commission was currently undertaking a cleaning exercise of the voters register.
She said the EC has identified in Ashanti region alone 200,000 names which are on the multiple registration list and that it was waiting to sit with the political parties to clear them.
According to Mr Mac Manu, the disclosure from the EC was "very strange" especially as in page 23 of the EC's response to NPP on the petition on the voters' register, it [EC] stated that it had identified 150,000 names countrywide. "How is it possible therefore for the EC to identify as much as 200,000 in Ashanti alone...I don't get it,"
Listen to Mac Manu in the audio attached below
{mp3}npp_dissastified_with_EC_response_mac_manu{/mp3}
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The NPP had petitioned the EC, alleging that the current voters’ register was 'bloated' with names of foreign nationals and minors and therefore should not be used for the upcoming general elections and that a new one should be compiled.
After engaging a five-member committee to look into the allegations, the EC concluded the NPP’s arguments were not “convincing” to permit a new register.
Replying the EC’s decision, Mr Mac Manu said five-member panel’s recommendations after a deliberation with various stakeholders on whether or not there should be a new voters’ register have been misrepresented by the Electoral Commission.
He accused the chairperson of the EC, Mrs Charlotte Osei, of being quick to jump on the ruling National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) “propaganda bandwagon.”
The EC, he claimed, was planning to manipulate the upcoming elections.
“For the Electoral Commission to insist on keeping on the register, voters whose citizenship is in doubt, as a result of the ruling of the Supreme Court only exposes the intent of the commission to completely forgo its mandate and hide behind all manner of excuses. The current registers’ credibility has been questioned by no less body but the Supreme Court, the EC is determined to keep it in order to give a particular party an undue and unfair advantage.”
“It is the responsibility of the Electoral Commission but no one else to adhere to the Supreme Court decision and purge the register of all such illegal entries before giving those who are eligible to vote another opportunity.”
Mr Mac Manu insisted that the NPP was exposing those facts not to target any particular group of people, but they were only doing it to show how “unscrupulous people in institutions of our state believe a political party, undermine the sovereignty of Ghanaian people by introducing in-eligible persons on our register to seek to manipulate elections.”
Writer's email: enoch.frimpong@graphic.com.gh