Supreme Court should also direct EC to include party affiliation in voter registration — Kwasi Kwarteng

A member of the New Patriotic Party's (NPP) National Communications Team, Kwasi Kwarteng, has called on the Supreme Court to extend its recent ruling abolishing the delegate system in political party primaries by directing the Electoral Commission (EC) to capture party affiliation during voter registration.

His comments follow the Supreme Court's 5-2 majority decision on Wednesday, July 29, ordering political parties to allow all registered members in good standing to participate in presidential and parliamentary primaries.

Reacting to the ruling in a social media post the same day, Kwarteng argued that the court's objective of deepening internal democracy could only be fully achieved through a centralised and credible system for maintaining party membership records.

"If the Supreme Court's objective is to deepen internal democracy by allowing all registered party members to vote in internal elections, then it should go a step further. The Court should, as part of its consequential orders, direct the Electoral Commission to incorporate political affiliation into the national voter registration process," the post read in part.

According to him, requiring eligible voters to declare their political affiliation or choose to remain politically neutral during voter registration would provide the Electoral Commission with an authoritative database for party membership.

He contended that such a system would eliminate the need for political parties to organise separate nationwide membership registration exercises and also address persistent disputes over the credibility of party registers.

"This would spare political parties the cost of conducting separate nationwide membership registration exercises, eliminate disputes over the credibility of party registers, prevent cross-party infiltration, and give practical effect to the Court's decision," the NPP communicator noted.

He further dismissed concerns that such a reform would be costly, arguing that the existing delegate system had itself become expensive and heavily monetised.

The NPP communicator stressed that an Electoral Commission-managed register, updated regularly, would provide a more credible, efficient and constitutionally sound framework for implementing the Supreme Court's ruling on internal party elections.