Get your act together for December 7 polls – NPP to EC

The opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), has charged the Electoral Commission to “get its act together” and focus on its mandate of ensuring that this year’s general elections in December come off successfully.

The Director of Elections for the party, Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah, accused the EC of failing to accept the obvious challenges it has in order to start dealing with them.

“The Commission doesn’t have its act together. It’s not enough to come and tell us that you are ready when indeed you are not. Everything seems to be disorganized. If they eat humble pie, get down to work and stop the talking, they should be able to overcome it. If you have difficulties and you don’t let people know. you are are not going to get help. There is so much talking and very little being done,” he said on Citi FM‘s Eyewitness News in reaction to Parliament’s rejection of the November 7 election date proposal.

Parliament voted to reject the Constitutional Amendment Bill on Thursday, which sought to change the date of the elections in Ghana from December 7, to the first Monday of November in election years.

125 of the 275 Members of the Parliament voted for the November 7 date, which meant they were short of the two-thirds majority needed for the bill to be accepted.

The Speaker, announcing the result, stated that, 95 MPs had voted against the date change. 45 MPs were absent from Parliament and were unable to vote.

The date for the elections thus remain December 7, while the swearing-in ceremony comes a month after in January.

Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah
Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah stated that, the decision taken by Parliament did not come as a surprise to him because the EC’s handling of all the matters that had come up concerning the polls was not encouraging.

According to him, issues surrounding the deletion of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) registrants, the re-registration of those people, and the exhibition of the voters’ register had exposed the EC’s unpreparedness for the elections.

“I am not surprised by what happened in Parliament. The Electoral Commission has failed to demonstrate it’s preparedness to hold this elections some months away from now. We have never gone into an election where so close, the primary document of the election, the voters’ register has been embroiled  in some kind of controversy which does not appear to have any end in sight. Even though we are supposed to be going through an exhibition process, there are too many problems. There are too many problems again with this NHIS brouhaha and people who have never had NHIS cards have found their names on the list. It’s almost leading to chaos all over the place, ” Martin Adjei Mensah-Korsah said

He added that, the uncertainty demonstrated by the EC, has been picked up by the Members of Parliament including, according to him, some in the Majority who voted against the Bill.

“The EC ought to have done certain activities but they’ve changed over and over, they keep shifting. It was obvious that with was going on in Parliament; very objective, well-meaning MPs who wish this country well would not want to see us go into any problems with our elections.”

He rejected suggestions that the NPP campaigned against the Bill because voting in December would be beneficial to the party if there is a change in government .

“The NPP was very much ready for November 7. All the arguments for it were sound and still remain sound. Unfortunately, this Commission, so disappointingly was going to throw us into a problem as they have always done.”

EC must communicate its readiness – IDEG

Meanwhile, the Executive Director Institute of Democratic Governance (IDEG), Emmanuel Akwetey, has called on the EC to improve its channels of communication to the public in order to forestall any doubts about its preparedness for the polls.

“The EC had put itself in a situation where people were questioning readiness because information wasn’t flowing on the state of preparedness at every stage. Our elections, unlike in places like South Africa, have become very transparent, very open. The public is as interested in the process of organizing elections and managing it as it is in football,” he said

–
By: Edwin Kwakofi/citifmonline.com/Ghana