NDC to ask for extension of registration exercise

Information reaching the New Statesman indicates that the ruling National Democratic Congress, apparently unhappy with voter figures from perceived strongholds in the ongoing biometric registration exercise, is readying itself to call on the Electoral Commission for an extension of the registration exercise.

 
The propaganda secretary of the NDC, Richard Quashigah, last week, laid the grounds for this imminent call by the ruling party claiming that since the start of the last phase of the registration exercise, most centres in the Volta Region have remained non functional due to “the acute shortage of registration materials.”

 
According to a source at the EC, the end of the 2 nd phase of the registration exercise had 601,507 out of the 8 million voters registered being from the Volta region, representing just 7.5% of registered voters across the country.

 
This development especially in the Volta Region, according to the hierarchy of the NDC, is unacceptable and represents a fatal blow to their thin chances of retaining power in the December 2012 polls, thus the need to push for an extension of the exercise.

 
The desperation of the NDC to increase the number of registered voters in the Volta region was evident over the weekend when four armed officers of the Ghana Police Service stationed in Ho were detained in Togo Zukpe, a town in Togo, after trying to mobilise Togolese residents to partake in the registration exercise on the instructions of the Metropolitan Chief Executive of Ho.

 
Law enforcement officers from the Togo, after being alerted to this development by residents, moved in and arrested these four police officers. According to information gathered by the New Statesman, Hon Isaac Kotobisa, Ho MCE, was in Togo Saturday morning, trying to negotiate their release.

 
In an interview with the Director of Elections and Research of the New Patriotic Party, Martin Adjei-Mensah, he said this imminent call by the NDC for an extension would be unjustified since every polling centre across the country has faced challenges, be it in the form of breakdown of equipment or shortage of registration materials.

 
According to the NPP man, despite these challenges, the EC is on course to meeting its target of registering about 13 million voters in the ongoing exercise, with over 11 million voters having been registered at the end of the 3 rd phase of the exercise.

 
Mr Adjei-Mensah explained that eligible voters normally troop to the nearest available polling station, within their constituency, when another polling station is faced with challenges.     

 
“The numbers are encouraging and there is absolutely no need for an extension of the registration exercise. The EC is on course to meeting its target and it must be commended for this in the face of these numerous challenges,” the NPP director of elections noted.

 
However, in the unlikely event that the EC was to acquiesce to the NDC's wish and extend the registration exercise, Mr Adjei-Mensah stated that the EC would have to dwell on the hardest hit registration centres and not an outright extension of the registration process nationwide.

 
According to Mr Adjei-Mensah, as per the EC's own records contained in the “Summary Districts Exported Data” the Electoral Commission knows which polling stations were hard hit, and as such if an extension to the exercise was to be allowed, it would only be in these affected polling stations that the exercise would be held.