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Commander-in-chief of the youth wing of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) Ernesto Yeboah has described as public relations gimmick the call by National Peace Council for all political parties to pledge for peaceful election.

According to the National Youth Organizer, it is hypocrisy for the Peace Council to call for peace now in the election year whereas Ghanaians have been subjected to three years of hardship in the country without a word of peace from the council.

At the launch of the campaign in Accra Thursday, Ernesto Yeboah, who was called to the podium to make the pledge on behalf of the CPP said “I am just here, supposed to come and pledge beautifully towards a peaceful election 2016 but I am sorry; I decline to do that.”

Explaining his reason for the decline, Ernesto Yeboah on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show said it is not his pledge for peaceful election that will ensure the peace the country needs as Peace Council has not talked on peace until the fourth year of election.

“We allow the people to be aggrieved by tax and fuel price increments as well as laying off workers and hardship; all these things will happen before Peace Council thinks of peace program with taxpayers' money. We all know that basis for democracy is to ensure good life and equitable distribution of wealth for all; our democracy is not working...the hypocrisy and propaganda won’t save us,” he chided.

He recalled EC’s panel that looked at the issue of the voter register recommended validation as a means of cleaning up the electoral roll but the Commission had turned a blind eye on it, with the National Peace Council, which Chairman, Rev Prof Emmanuel Kwaku Asante, and other stakeholders, were present at the function, having kept quiet about the attitude of the EC boss.

“It appears the EC is not committed to its own committee’s recommendation. We are calling on them to be truthful to their committee’s reports of cleaning up the voter register. By now, we should have seen at the various polling stations the list of voters to see those who are alive, travelled and dead but the EC is not doing any of these things”, he stated.

He stressed that “if we want peace in the country, we all know one of the biggest platform is the fraudulent voter register. There are certain things the EC must do first before the peace can be assured”.

“Peace Council cannot enforce us to pledge for peace when EC has not done anything that will promote peace. They are making the definition of peace to mean ‘shut up and suffer the injustice’”, he jabbed.

The CPP Youth Organizer wondered why peace was being preached when there was a clear hindrance to peace building in the country.

He explained that it would be hypocritical for him to pledge for peace on behalf of the youth of his party or anyone else towards election 2016 when the properties of his party-CPP- had been confiscated over the years by the state.