General elections in Ghana now in November?

• Posted on November 27, 2013
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Ghanaian political parties have made a proposal which could push voting in general elections from December to November if the Electoral Commission (EC) agrees to the suggestion.

The political parties, in a joint proposal, are requesting that the 2016 general elections be held in November.

This, according to the parties, will give them ample time to prepare for a run-off or an election petition, if the need arises.

The parties, under the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), Ghana Political Parties Programme (GPPP), presented this proposal and others to the Electoral Commission yesterday.

The political parties also proposed that the provision in the regulations, which states that ‘No verification, No vote’ must be maintained and enforced as such.

The parties explained that the situation where a person’s fingerprint could not be authenticated but yet allowed to vote because he or she was well-known within the community must be completely ruled out.

“This means that there must be authentication of fingerprints before a person is allowed to vote.”

The parties consented in a number of proposals which they submitted to the Electoral Commission for electoral reforms under the auspices of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA).

They also called on the EC to, as much as possible, make every effort to rectify the problems caused by the equipment used for verification.

Dr Ransford Gyampo, a research fellow at the IEA who made the presentation to the media, indicated that the various political party leaders, in reaching consensus, shelved their partisan loyalties and engaged in dispassionate discussions taking into account the fact that Ghana’s interest was supreme.

Dr Gyampo stated that “there is the need to amend Section 46 of Act 284, Representation of People’s Act which requires the written consent of the Attorney General before election-related crimes could be prosecuted to allow the police to carry out prosecution of all electoral offences.”
The parties proposed that the EC should not review constituency boundaries in an election year.

This particular exercise had usually been attributed to machinations of governing political parties.

They agreed that there should be a fixed number of constituencies to be reviewed periodically in accordance with the law and in line with population movements.

The IEA-GPPP also made a request for an opened and accessible National Collation Centre, which could accommodate many members of the political parties, the media, civil society organisations and election observers.

This, they suggested, should be under tight security in order to enhance transparency of the national collation exercise.

Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, Chairman of the Ghana Political Parties Programme (GPPP), on behalf of all the political parties, expressed the belief that the proposal, when considered, would reform Ghana’s electoral system and make it more transparent.

By Frank Agyemang