The Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has charged President Akufo- Addo to initiate processes of implementing the 3 flagship recommendations proposed by the Party.
Addressing a news conference in Accra on Tuesday the Party’s General Secretary Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah explained that the electoral proposal is meant to reform Ghana’s electoral processes aimed at ensuring free and fair and violence free elections.
“You all know that all is not well about our elections. After 1992 constitution each election that we’ve had, we’ve made progress from previous ones until the 2020 elections. We acknowledge that the last election is the worst election”, Mr. Nketiah emphasized.
The General Secretary revealed that the 34 point electoral recommendations which he said are in two parts.
Part A, he said has 10 reforms out of which 3 are NDC’s flagship including Members of EC should be appointed by the President in consultation with the Council of state and approved by two- third of Parliament.
“ In our second flagship recommendation, we propose that Inter -Party Advisory Committee (IPAC ) should be backed by legislation and that its composition and functions should be clearly spelt out in the legislation”, he said.
“It is not only political parties who break the rules. The referees also break the rules there are times you need something and what you hear is I am the EC boss here I wont give it to you, you can go to hell. These are some of things we are talking about”, the General Secretary stressed.
The third recommendation according to the General Secretary is the splitting of the EC into two separate and distinct bodies.
“Office of the Regulator of political parties (ORPP) responsible for the registration and regulation of political parties, an Electoral Commission (EC) responsible for the conduct of Presidential, Parliamentary, District Assembly and Unit Committee and other public elections and referenda”, he disclosed.
Throwing more light on the proposal, the Chairman of the Proposal Committee Nana Ato Dadzie revealed that the part B calls for the continuous registration of voters system already approved by IPAC and accepted by the EC be implemented.
“However, for reasons of cost and convenience, the registration should be undertaken at the district offices of the EC once every month”, he added.
Some of the recommendations in the part B includes the EC ensuring that voting period of 7am to 5pm be maintained as well as EC should be required to publish details of all election results on polling station by polling station and Constituency by Constituency basis on its website and in the Gazette.
“There must be a public broadcast of the Presidential vote collation process at the EC head office as and when the Constituency Presidential results are received and certified”
The rest are constitution of Special adjudication court to adjudicate post electoral disputes as well as the Abolishment of the Regional collation centres.
Nana Dadzie therefore called on president Akufo Addo to initiate steps to operationalize the 3 reform recommendations in Part A.
“We hope that government will initiate the necessary steps to operationalize especially the 3 flagship reform recommendations in Part A of our proposals as well as the recommendations of the Constitutional Review Commission”, the Chairman of the Committee emphasized.
Source: Ghana/otecfmghana.com
