Voters' register: State your case and let EC decide-Mahama tells critics

President John Mahama says persons campaigning for the compilation of a new voters' register for the 2016 General Elections must simply state their case and give the Electoral Commission the space to make its own decision on the matter.

Speaking to journalists in France, the president said he as president is not even in a position to influence that decision.

His comments come in a wake of violent protests and court litigations that have attended the call for a new electoral roll.

The Let My Vote Count Alliance has been at the fore front in demanding a new voter's register with the claim that the existing one is bloated.

The Alliance is supported by the opposition New Patriotic Party which has also provided what it says is an incontrovertible evidence that the current register is compromised.

Other parties including the Convention People's Party and the Progressive People's Party are also in support of a new register even though the governing National Democratic Congress would rather have the register cleaned instead of a totally new one.

The Let My Vote Account Alliance embarked on a demonstration to push the EC to compile a new register but that demonstration turned violent after the police shot rubber bullets, tear gas into the demonstrators.

The police claimed the organisers of the demonstration breached the agreement with the police by changing the route of the demonstration and going to the EC where they had been told not to go.

Scores of demonstrators sustained varying degrees of injuries with one of them losing one of his eyes.

Others too were arrested by the police to be prosecuted.

The president who has largely been quiet on the issue broke his silence, Thursday with a call on all Ghanaians to let the EC do its job.

"I have no right to interfere in that list. Ghana has an Electoral Commissioner that is independent and does not consult the president to do anything.

"It is a relatively young register because we have only used it for only one election and it was a register that has been biometrically compiled.

"And what we have done in the past is that when we have a young register we clean it up but one party says they want it scrapped completely and a new register compiled.

"We have to look at whether they have a case and that is why they are supposed to present their view but they are not only presenting view they are holding demonstration and so on.

"It is for the EC to decide what to do," he said.