[ 2014-09-02 ]

Occupy Ghana Pressure group asks EC to allow Ghanaian residents abroad to vote
Pressure group Occupy Ghana is asking the
Electoral Commission to take immediate steps to
implement the Representation of People's Amendment
Act, 2006 in order to allow foreign Ghanaian
residents to vote.

It is also requesting the Commission to make the
Voters Register available at least one year before
the 2016 General elections.

The proposal is part of a 19 point communique
issued by the group days after it held a public
forum in conjunction with IMANI Ghana on the need
for election reforms in Ghana.

The theme for the forum is 2012 Election
Petition-Status of Recommendation for electoral
reforms.

The full comminique is as follows.
Further to the deliberations of participants at
the public forum organized on the above theme
under the auspices of OccupyGhana and IMANI Ghana,
we the Organisers and the Participants, have
reached consensus that there is the need to
protect our democracy by strengthening the
integrity of our electoral process and enhancing
the credibility of our elections and election
results.

The Electoral Commission, speaking through its
designated representative at the forum, was unable
to furnish participants with the needed
information about the commission's preparedness to
enable us to ascertain the status of the proposed
electoral reforms.

Accordingly, we the participants have concluded
that there is the dire need for the Electoral
Commission to take immediate and firm measures to
implement the recommendations of the Supreme Court
as well as those already proposed by the Inter
Party Advisory Committee (IPAC), IEA-GPPP.

In addition to these recommendations from the
Supreme Court and IPAC, the Electoral Commission,
Government, and all Ghanaians, must consider the
following specific actions:

RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION:
1. The Electoral Commission must prepare the
Voters Register and make it available for public
scrutiny at least one year before the election
date.

2. Electoral Commission must publish the
identities and qualifications of proposed
presiding officers so that the public may have an
opportunity to challenge their suitability. In
addition, The Electoral Commission must liaise
with the Ministry of Education to employ teachers
as presiding officers on Election Day.

3. The Electoral Commission must change the
Electoral Calendar to make way for the conduct of
the General Elections in October so as to allow
sufficient time for any petitions arising from the
elections to be speedily resolved before a
President-elect is sworn in.

4. The Electoral Commission must come out with the
Electoral Time Table two years ahead of time and
must strictly comply with it.

5. The Electoral Commission must be open and
transparent about its administrative procedures
and policymaking and decision-making process.

6. The Electoral Commission must publish the
criteria, methodology and process by which it
undertakes constituency delimitation and hold
public hearings and consultations as part of the
process of constituency delimitation.

7. The Electoral Commission must aim, in its
constituency delimitation exercise, to reduce the
disparities in the population between
constituencies, in order to ensure fair and
equitable legislative representation of
communities in different constituencies.

8. The Election Commission must discontinue the
practice of basing constituency delimitation on
the President's creation of new districts and must
challenge as unconstitutional any statute or
regulation requiring the Commission to do so.

9. The Electoral Commission must take immediate
steps to implement the Representation of People's
Amendment Act, 2006, to allow foreign Ghanaian
residents to vote.

10. The Electoral Commission, acting in
conjunction with the National Commission for Civic
Education (NCCE) and Commission for Human Rights
and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), must
investigate the causes of the large number of
spoiled ballots recorded in our elections and
implement appropriate measures, including public
education programs, aimed at addressing this
problem, as this effectively disenfranchises
thousands of voters.

11. The Electoral Commission must increase the
seating capacity of the Strong Room to allow more
stakeholders to observe collation of election
results.

RECOMMENDATIONS TO GOVERNMENT:
12. Government, through Parliament and the
Attorney General, must enact legislation to
sanction the actions and/or inaction of presiding
officers. The Electoral Commission should be able
to impose administrative sanctions against its
officials who fail to carry out their lawful
duties

13. Government must provide financial resources to
the Electoral Commission on time in order for the
Commission to execute its mandate efficiently.

14. Government should adequately resource the
National Identification Authority so that it can
continue the process of building a multi-purpose
national identification system whose cards can be
used to exercise one's right to vote.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE JUDICIARY AND PARLIAMENT
15. The Rules of Court Committee must make rules
and regulations to require that an election
petition is heard and decided within a specified
time period after a petition is filed. With
respect to a presidential petition, the Rules must
ensure that a disputed election is resolved in
advance of the date for the swearing in of a
President-elect. With respect to a parliamentary
petition, the Rules must ensure that a petition,
including any appeal from the original decision of
the High Court, is resolved no longer than six
months after the filing of the petition.

16. The Judiciary must bifurcate the calendar for
the adjudication of election-related challenges,
so that Voters Register-related challenges will be
resolved and determined before Election Day.

17. Parliament must use the recommendations and
agreements reached by IPAC as a basis for enacting
changes to existing laws governing the conduct of
elections.

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CITIZENS:
18. Citizens must observe and adhere to electoral
rules and regulations. They must remain vigilant
to ensure compliance of electoral rules by others
on Election Day.

19. There is the need to build consensus on the
feasibility or otherwise of proportional
representation by commencing a public debate on
the subject.

Source - MyjoyOnline

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