NDC fights EC over limited registration

• Posted on August 31, 2023
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Director of Legal Affairs for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Godwin Edudzi Tamakloe, has strongly indicated that the opposition party may challenge in court the Electoral Commission’s (EC) decision to limit the new voter registration exercise to the commission’s 268 district offices.

Chairperson of the EC, Jean Adukwei Mensa, recently announced a new voter registration exercise as part of its preparations for the 2023 District Level Elections, which will begin on Tuesday, September 12, 2023 and end on Monday, October 2, 2023.

The new registration exercise is to allow Ghanaians who have reached the voting age of 18 years since the last registration in 2020, as well as others who are older but were unable to register during the 2020 registration for various reasons, to do so.

Mr. Tamakloe claimed that if the EC is allowed to carry out its intentions, the majority of the new voters will be denied the right to register, adding that the NDC’s Legal Directorate will look at legal options to contest the decision.

He thinks that the commission is misapplying the law by limiting the registration to its district offices.

“We will explore all the available legal channels to ensure that we will get an outcome that will allow the registration to be more decentralised. We want to ensure that all our MPs are duly protected within the confines of our law, and we will definitely do that,” he said.

Already, some political parties have expressed misgivings about the decision of the EC to use only its district offices as registration centres, with District Electoral Officers, Assistant District Electoral Officers and their secretaries serving as the registration officials.

Meanwhile, some staff of the commission are also not happy about the decision to limit the registration to the district offices, raising concerns over lack of flow of funds to the commission.

DAILY GUIDE sources indicated that allowances to be paid to staff have been curtailed, with suggestions that the commission has no budget for the registration exercise.

By Ernest Kofi Adu