Dr Afari Gyan – EC Boss
Political parties contesting this year’s presidential and parliamentary elections have expressed concern about the impending elections on December 7 this year.
These concerns were raised when all the contesting parties met the top-guns of the Electoral Commission (EC) in an inter-Party dialogue held yesterday. The parties cited possibility of the verification machines during the election to cause delays; absence of some registered voters from the voters’ register; low publicity and slow pace of preparations by the EC.
Top on the list of concerns was raised by Alhaji Hudu Yahya of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) who said the NDC was jittery about the prospects of the verification process during the election. He elucidated the source of the NDC’s concerns saying that with the 10-hour exercise (7 am to 5pm) and the two- minute time-span estimated to be spent on each voter for post clearance and verification, only about 300 voters would be able to vote per polling station.
That might potentially disenfranchise prospective voters, Alhaji Yahya noted. But the Public Affairs Director of the EC, Christian Owusu Parry, told DAILY GUIDE that the verification concern was not supported by facts from the EC. “We think that the process moves quite fast enough, that it should be possible for everybody who is on the register and who turns up at the polling station to be able to cast their votes before the poll is brought to a close,” he stated.
According to Mr. Parry, on the election day, the EC would be flexible on voters who were already queued between 7am and 5pm to cast their ballots. “If at 5pm, there are still people in the queue who have not yet been able to go through the process, time is allowed for those in the queue to go through the process before voting is brought to an end,” explained the EC’s head of public affairs.
“I think we can process a lot more people than we were doing in the past. This time, the name reference list is so designed that it is easy to find persons in the register,” Mr. Parry assured.
According to him, in the past, the process of merely locating the position of a voter in the voters register manually was time-consuming, unlike the utilization of the verification machine which would instantly locate a voter’s position in the register.
The political parties were almost unanimous in their concerns on the fact that there were several people who currently possessed voters’ identification cards, yet could not locate their names in the voters register. The parties were visibly worried that barely 30 days to the elections, the EC had not released the final voters register for people to confirm their inclusion.
“We don’t have a register; our concern is when we are going to get that register,” agreed Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, the National Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). The NPP said it had gotten hold of the provisional register and would make a comparison with the final register when the EC finally released it.
Testing The Waters
Last weekend, the EC conducted a mock election exercise to test its preparedness for the impending general elections. The EC said it was generally satisfied with the outcome of the mock exercise. “I think that the observation I made was positive,” Christian Owusu Parry told DAILY GUIDE.
But some political parties have criticized the process, saying it lacked the necessary publicity that the EC should have given it. The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) National Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond, told DAILY GUIDE, “Not enough publicity was given to the pilot programme, so not so many people knew where the pilot was going to take place. Those that got to know, got to know in the wee hours of the morning.”
Brew-Hammond also cited instances where some difficulties were detected in the verification system when it failed to register the biometric details of some voters.
“We will need about two days for the voters exercise if we really want it to be effective,” stated Jacob Osei Yeboah, an independent presidential candidate. He noted that the issues experienced with the verification system were understandable because of the unreliability of technology.
Afari Gyan’s Assurance
Meanwhile, the chairman of the EC, Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, has affirmed that his outfit will conduct the December 7 elections “without favour to any party or candidate”.
According to the EC boss, the EC had no choice than to conduct free, transparent and fair elections because Ghanaians were “yearning for credible elections”.
“We can’t disappoint them [Ghanaians]. To this end, the EC and all the principal actors in the upcoming elections should have the same objective to conduct the various activities in such a way as to facilitate the holding of free, fair and transparent elections,” he added.
Recently, the EC was rocked by corruption scandals when the presidential candidate of the New Vision Party (NVP) alleged that he was fleeced of some hefty amount by two directors of the commission, Kofi Asumani, the Director of Elections and Asante Kissi, Director of Elections in charge of Logistics.
By Dr. Afari Gyan downplayed this blot on the reputation of the EC and vowed to conduct a free and fair election. “The EC will do its work in a transparent manner without favour to any party or candidate. That is only one side of the coin. True democratic elections can only be held under peaceful condition devoid of violence, intimidation and any form of cheating so the electorate can freely exercise their right to choose a person they want to lead them,” he said.
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