[ 2016-02-02 ]

Opposition parties question EC’s preparedness for 2016
Major opposition parties in the country are
questioning the Electoral Commission’s
preparedness for this year’s election.

The 2016 election unlike the previous ones will be
conducted on November 7.

However, with less than 10 months to go to the
polls, the opposition political parties feel the
EC is not pulling it's weight.

Voter sensitization is their main cause of worry.
They believe the EC must do more.

Deputy General Secretary of the New Patriotic
Party (NPP), Nana Obiri Boahene in an interview
with Joy News complained about the posture of
Commission.

He said “we are being told that there is going
to be a limited registration. How are you going to
conduct this limited registration?

“Another serious indictment on the EC is that
the chairperson herself told the whole world that
she was highly convinced that there were 200,000
ghost names in the register. Few Days later she
came to tell us that was not her position and that
she should be forgiven. These utterances gives
grounds to conclude that the EC is not a trust
worthy institution,” he said.

The Convention People’s Party’s Nii Armah
Akomfrah said his party expected a meeting to be
called to enable all stakeholders contribute to
towards how to clean the register but this has not
been done. He believes the EC is “taking the
minority out of the whole process.”

National Secretary of the People’s Progressive
Party Murtala Mohammed he has not seen or heard of
any concrete measure being taken by the EC with
regards to the election.

“I have not heard of any workshop organised with
regards to election 2016, especially when we are
going to have this elections in November. The EC
cannot assume that we have had elections many
times and there for this will go smoothly.”

The People’s National Convention on the other
hand is of the view that much more needs to be
done with regards to the creation of awareness.

The failure to create awareness, Atik Mohammed
believes is the reason “we tend to encounter
some challenges with our elections. Some of these
challenges could be averted in order to have
successful elections.

“This should not be seen as an attempt to
condemn the EC but to wake it and all other
agencies and institutions responsible for
educating Ghanaians up to realise that not much
has been done,” he said.

Executive director of the Institute of Economic
Affairs (IEA), Jean Mensah raised similar concerns
on Monday.

She told Joy News “there is so much work to be
done” and although the EC has put out a
timetable, “I am not hearing of voter
education.

“I am not sure the EC is collaborating with the
NCCE to raise awareness about the election. We
need to start engaging in voter education, we only
have about eight months to the election and I am
not sure we are putting ourselves in place to have
a successful election.”

The governing National democratic Congress
disagrees. The party said the arguments hold no
merit.

Deputy General Secretary of the party, George
Lawson said “there is something going on.”

Source - Myjoyonline

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