Ghanaian Political Analyst, Dr. Kwame Asah Asare has asserted that the various political parties and Civil Society Organizations (CSO’s) can sue the Electoral Commission if it goes on to compile a new voters’ register.
Speaking in an interview on Happy98.9FM’s Happy Morning Show, the astute analyst mentioned, “The only advice I can give to the National Democratic Congress (NDC), members of IPAC and the CSO’s is for them to relax for the meeting with the EC. But after the meeting, they have 2 options, if the EC refuses to build a consensus and still insists on going on to compile the new voters’ register. The first option is letting them go ahead with the register or take a second drastic step by taking them to the courts.”
According to him, “if you advise someone and they refuse to listen, you can take that person to an institution which they can be compelled to listen to. And that is the courts. When the courts speak, it is law, it is enforced and you’ll work with it.”
He went on to caution that in undertaking this drastic measure if need be, the NDC and other members of IPAC should make sure they don’t twist the arm of the EC into doing something which will otherwise be to the detriment of the entire nation and later blame the EC.
An Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting will be held later today, in Accra over the controversy surrounding the Electoral Commission’s (EC) decision to compile a new voters’ register ahead of election 2020.
The meeting is being convened at the behest of the EC’s Eminent Advisory Committee which had called for an all-inclusive engagement on the issue.
A statement signed by the EC’s Acting Director of Public Affairs, Sylvia Annoh, on behalf of the Committee said the meeting seeks “to engage with the Inter-Party Advisory Committee on the Electoral Commission’s plan to compile a new Voters’ Register ahead of the 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.”
The EC plans to abandon its current biometric verification system and procure a new one which has a facial recognition technology. The Commission also plans to compile a new voters’ register.
But these plans are being opposed by a coalition of political parties known as the Inter-Party Resistance
Against New Voter Register.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) is among the parties opposing the new register.
By: Joel Sanco