Don`t force EC to implement ROPAL

Mr. Felix Nyarko-Antwi, Vice Chairman of the Mfantseman West Constituency of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has urged party functionaries not to force the Electoral Commission (EC) to implement the Representation of the People's Amendment Law (ROPAL) for the 2008 general election.

He said the implementation of the Law is a prerogative of the EC and as such the Commission should be left to decide.

"We should allow the Commission to prepare well for ROPAL's take-off", Mr Nyarko-Antwi said in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Mankessim on Tuesday.

He noted that the position taken by the two leading parties on the implementation of the law posed a threat to "our fragile democracy".

Mr Nyarko-Antwi noted that the implementation of ROPAL would be "cost intensive" and said there were other pressing issues such as the energy crisis, which also needed huge sums of money to solve. He expressed doubts if the government could raise enough money for the EC to implement the Law next year.

Mr. Nyarko-Antwi said the NPP won the last two general elections in 2000 and 2004 without the participation of Ghanaians in the Diaspora and concluded that "If now the party thinks it cannot win the 2008 elections without them, then there is something wrong and the leadership should sit up".