Politics

EC creating unfavourable registration condition for citizenry – Afriyie Ankrah alleges

Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, the Director of Elections for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has alleged that the Electoral Commission (EC) is going back on some decisions it took earlier creating conditions that will make it unfavourable for some citizens to register and exercise their voting rights on December 7.

He catalogued a number of issues which he alleged were inconsistencies and contradictions by the EC in their dealings with the NDC and some citizens over the new voters’ registration exercise.

According to Mr Ankrah, the NDC has been consistent with its opposition to a new voters’ roll, insisting that majority of Ghanaians could be denied their voting rights should the EC go ahead with its decision.

However, the EC had maintained that a new voters’ register was the best way of ensuring it delivered on mandate of free, fair, credible and transparent elections, a position which appeared to have absolute approval of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Last week, the press conferences from NPP and NDC, the major protagonists in the debate showed yet again their respective resolve to keep accusing each other and ignore role of facts, evidence and reason in public discourse.

Mr Ankrah indicated that “when the debate about a new voters’ register commenced, we went round, speaking to civil society and held press conferences, in response EC produced documents, asked themselves a question because they were responding to issues, they responded ‘no’.

“The EC will use existing data of voters during registration of voters into the new voters’ register, to be registered into the new register existing voters need to only present their existing voter’s ID card to the registration officer, at IPAC we asked them if they were going to use the old voter’s ID, they said ‘yes’, are you going to use the NIA? They said ‘no’.

“If a public institution like EC, you inform the citizenry you are going to use a particular card which is germane to all discussions, for strange reason you send a CI to Parliament, in CI voters’ register which consistently has been part of processes is taken out and requirement are only passport and NIA card,” Mr Ankrah fumed -ghanaweb.com

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