Acting General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu says the recommendation of the 5 Member Committee set up by the Electoral Commission to maintain the current voters’ register was already decided by the Commission before the forum was held.
According to him, the utterances of the Electoral Commissioner, Madam Charlotte Osei before she set up a committee to look into the demands of the opposition NPP for a new voters’ register, had always been opposing the proposition of the opposition parties in their quest for a new voters’ register.
Among other recommendations of the 5 Member Committee over the public forum to determine the need for a new voters’ register or not, the Committee stated the opposition parties were not able to convince with enough evidence to warrant a new register and so the current voters’ register should be maintained.
Commenting on the report, John Boadu on Okay Fm’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show expressed surprise at the entrenched position of the Electoral Commission to maintain the register for the 2016 election.
He stated it is embarrassing that EC sought to justify its ingrained position to maintain the register with the fact that the NPP in 2012 went to the Supreme Court to challenge the election results to rather declare Nana Akufo-Addo the president.
He explained that irrespective of whoever won the 2012 election petition, the court ruled that the electoral process and other things are wrong and it is base on this that the EC set up a Reform Committee and attended a lot of seminars with representatives of political parties on the committee.
He ascertain that the Reform Committee was set up in admission that some things are wrong with the electoral register; reiterating that the committee has helped at the IPAC meeting to define over-voting which Dr. Afari Gyan could not defined when he was asked in court.
“Why are we defining over-voting after someone has already won? There should have been no need for the reform because someone has been declared the winner and that makes the register credible,” he stated.
He reported that the EC and the election stakeholders are now finding modalities and law to allow each and every voter who is turning 18 to walk to the district offices to register with the full involvement of political parties’ representatives.
“We are still thinking about how to make things better in our electoral process…why is EC wasting time to discuss the way forward if the register is credible? Was it not the same EC which came out that it has done de-duplication to delete over 100, 000 names from the register? I think that EC must be seen to be bias because when we went to court, the lawyers of EC and NDC were sitting at one place, sharing documents and ideas as well as comparing notes”, he chided.
“I thought by now, the EC will be moving away from that kind of argument and make sure that they will be independent in their work as the law says and don’t ponder to one political party,” he added.
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