Stakeholders’ support for peaceful elections paramount
Election periods in the country are interesting because of certain occurrences, some real and others imagined, and most of them filled with drama.
The unfortunate twist of the whole matter is that the Electoral Commission (EC) is always on the side of the government and ready to employ any means to rig the elections in favour of the ruling party.
Most of the time the focus of the allegation is on the voters register – how it has been bloated or how the names of some voters have been removed from it to disenfranchise them.
It would be recalled, for instance, that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) recently called for the audit of the register upon identifying some errors in it, and even embarked on a nationwide protest to back its demands.
In response to the NDC demands, the EC said there was no need for a forensic audit as the voters register in question was a provisional one and that the legal and administrative mechanisms established to clean it had not been fully utilised, making a forensic audit unnecessary at that stage.
Yesterday, the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Jean Mensa, announced the release of the revised provisional voters register for the upcoming 2024 general election.
She explained that the EC had corrected discrepancies and removed anomalies from the register, ensuring all eligible voters registered in 2020, 2023, and 2024 had been included.
She said the revised register was available online free of charge and political parties had been provided with soft copies on hard drives.
By this act, The Ghanaian Times believes the EC has proven its resolve to live by its tenets of transparency and integrity to conduct free, transparent and credible elections this year as in all the previous years.
There can still be issues here and there but the most important thing is for the EC to bring its credibility to bear on the elections and everything now points to its efforts to acquit itself of the expectation of all stakeholders, particularly political parties, as they usually stoke the fire of political chaos.
It is reassuring to learn of the EC’s declaration that it appreciates the fact that the voters register is the bedrock of credible, fair and transparent elections, and the December 7, 2024 polls will be conducted with a register with such attributes.
It is also heart-warming that the EC has left its doors open for criticism and correction.
Even though some may describe NDC’s call for auditing the provisional voters register as premature at the time it made it (as the register had not gone through all the legal and administrative mechanism to clean it), it was a good prompting that has played a significant role in having the register ready for this year’s general election.
It again brings a lot of joy that the EC has acknowledged the fact that its re-exhibition of the Voters Register for the 2024 elections is the brainchild of the NDC.
The NDC suggestion clearly indicates that the EC requires the support of all stakeholders to deliver free, fair and transparent elections to avoid any electoral violence, thereby preserving the peace and tranquillity in the country.
